Just You
by jbirdpuff
Summary: The curse Hermione gets hit with in the Department of Mysteries triggers a series of visions all revolving around the same thing. Fred Weasley. As the war continues, Hermione watches as every vision comes to pass. - Fremione - rated M for language
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I have no idea how long this one will be honestly. It will be a Fremione fic, and it will be centered wholly on romance. Oh yeah. **_**Pure **_**Romance. With a splash of angst. Just how I like it. **

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything**

* * *

**Prologue: His Eyes**

Hermione's dreams came in flashes like a broken roll of film. After every incoherent flash the darkness would return, encroaching on the edges of her vision.

She couldn't tell if she was dreaming, or if it was real, but what unsettled her was that every flash seemed to be centered around only one thing.

Fred Weasley.

Some were no longer than a second. Just his eyes, purple and orange robes, a calla lily, his hands, a wax seal.

The longer ones had things like his laugh, him shoving an entire cookie in his mouth, an explosion and ash covered face, him pulling her trunk up unrecognizable stairs, a hand pulling her to dance, spinning robes, kisses on her wrist, blood dripping down a pale freckled temple.

Things that had so sense. No reason. It made her mind hurt nearly as much as the ache in her torso.

Her torso.

Her eyes flew open and the first thing she saw...

It was _his eyes_.

Identical to the flashes that had played on repeat for the indeterminable amount of time. Blinking at the same time. Opened the same amount. She'd seen it before.

Big and blue and staring at her like she had just solved the world's greatest mystery just by rejoining the conscious world.

"Mione!"

She flinched at the loud intrusion into her previously silent world and those eyes turned apologetic.

"Sorry about that. Got excited, I did. You've been out a long time, sleeping beauty."

Hermione just blinked up at him in confusion. His eyes looked so different than she remembered. Like there was more there than she could see, more than she'd ever looked for. She felt the pad of a pointer finger push against her cheek and come back in between their two faces, shining with her tears.

"Why are you crying, Mione? Does it hurt?"

She hadn't even known she was crying. Hermione watched in fascination as he looked like he, himself was in pain. She opened her mouth, but snapped it shut again when she heard pounding footsteps on creaky wooden floors.

"Fred! Give her some space!" Fred gave her one last look before pulling away completely.

"Sorry, mum. Try to keep it down, yeah? Her brain is mushy."

Hermione tried to protest, but all that came out were a few coughs.

"Oh, dear. Fred, get her a glass of water!"

Hermione felt hands then on her back, pulling her up before resting her against fluffed pillows.

To her left was Ginny and to her right, Molly. Everything ached.

Fred returned then, and when he saw her eyes following him, he gave her one of his grins.

Molly took the glass from him, and Hermione lifted her hands to take it. Molly batted her hands away and held the glass to Hermione's lips herself.

Hermione couldn't even find it in herself to be angry at her show of weakness because the moment the cold liquid touched her throat it was like instant relief.

A few gulps later, Molly pulled the glass away, and Hermione managed to croak out only part of a question.

"What hap…" she started coughing again and Molly clucked her tongue.

"You've been sustained with nutrients potions, so it's going to take a while to get up to normal speed again, dear."

Hermione frowned, and Molly stepped towards the doorway.

"I'm going to go floo for Madame Pomfrey," she said strongly. She gave Fred and Ginny insistent looks before bustling out of the door. It was only after that, that Hermione's eyes darted around, and she realized that she wasn't in the Hospital Wing. She appeared to be in her and Ginny's room at the Burrow which only further confused her.

Where she normally would've turned to Ginny for answers, instead she looked to Fred.

He was studying her with the most serious expression she'd ever seen on his face.

"What happened?" She tried again. It came out like a croak, but it was significantly better.

The last thing she remembered was going to the Ministry at Harry's insistence. The Hall of Prophecies. _Dolohov_.

Fred cleared his throat, and her eyes snapped back up to him.

"You were cursed by Dolohov. It was one of his own personal curses. They didn't know what it was, so your recovery took a little longer than expected."

Her eyebrows furrowed, and she felt Ginny take her hand beside her, "You would've died if you hadn't silenced him, Hermione."

She watched in horror as the fiery red-head's eyes filled with tears. She shook her head at her and looked away again. "I'm alive," she said plainly. She cleared her throat and asked, "Everyone else?" The silence was deafening following that.

"Hermione… Sirius…"

Hermione's eyes widened. "What?" She urged.

"He's dead, Hermione. Bellatrix sent him through the Veil."

Hermione lifted her weak and unoccupied hand and pushed against her forehead. Her head was pounding.

"Harry?" She asked nervously.

"I don't know. He's at the Dursley's."

Hermione felt like her heart was burning, so she moved her hand from her head to her chest. The small amount of pressure caused a tremor of pain to wrack her body, and suddenly her second hand was taken up by Fred's much larger one.

"Careful there, Mione."

Hermione warily moved her eyes to look down at her torso. She was wearing some kind of sleep t-shirt, so, careful of her audience, she removed her hand from Ginny's to lift her shirt and look at her chest.

Even in the shadows, she could see a dark purple, angry scar cutting across her upper body from her hip to her collarbone.

Angry tears sprang to her eyes, so she squeezed them shut.

"Is it permanent?"

"Fraid so," Ginny whispered.

Hermione wiped at her eyes in frustration and croaked out, "I'm so selfish. Harry lost his godfather, and I'm crying about a stupid scar!"

Fred gave her a wan smile. "It's not selfish. It's normal. A bit out of character for you, but normal."

Ginny smirked at her. "I think it's badass."

Hermione laughed humorlessly and said, "Have you actually seen it?"

Ginny's smirk remained when she said, "Who do you think changed all the bandages?"

Hermione smiled genuinely then, but it dropped after only a second. "How long?"

If she was here that meant that term had ended, so now there was really no telling how long it had been.

"You were asleep for nineteen days, sleeping beauty."

This time she was of right enough mind to scowl at him for the pet name.

Molly appeared again then with Pomfrey in tow, and everyone was pushed out of the room for her to take potions.

When she fell back into sleep it was the same thing over and over again. Alternating flashes of Fred Weasley and darkness.

His eyes, purple and orange robes, a calla lily, his hands, a wax seal. His laugh, him shoving an entire cookie in his mouth, an explosion and ash covered face, him pulling her trunk up unrecognizable stairs, a hand pulling her to dance, spinning robes, kisses on her wrist, blood dripping down a pale freckled temple.

The _exact _same.

His eyes had been the _exact _same.

* * *

His mother had set up an informal time-sheet for keeping watch over Hermione for the nineteen days she'd slept fitfully in both the Hospital Wing and the Burrow.

Ron had made a big fuss at first about him deserving the honor, but it became clear after just the first few hours that he was neither patient enough nor dedicated.

It just so happened that Fred was both.

Him and George were working to get their shop running by the end of summer, but the whole Department of Mysteries spectacle had changed things. Primarily, Fred's priorities.

It was a well-known fact between the twins that Hermione Granger was a total dime.

She was a diamond in the rough just waiting for someone to notice how much she shined, and boy, had they noticed.

George's was more of a passing fancy, but Fred's ended up being much deeper, seeing as he couldn't convince himself to sign up for less than the majority of the watching Hermione shifts.

Ron was suspicious. Ginny was surprisingly knowing. Mum was confused but pleased. Dad was oblivious. Georgie, though, Georgie was amused.

All of it paid off when she shifted in her sleep and opened her large brown eyes to him on the nineteenth day.

He could tell something was different. There was something in the way she looked at him that made him think that maybe she saw him how he saw her, but then she'd started to cry. He'd had to shake himself from his wishful thinking.

Once he'd left the room after Pomfrey arrived, he quickly flooed to the flat above their shop.

He ran down to where he knew George and Lee were and burst through into the small lab in the back.

"Georgie, a miracle has occurred!"

George glanced up from where he was working and his face broke out into a huge grin.

"Our little Hermione, is awake then?"

"Oh she's awake." Fred collapsed on what he'd deemed 'his chair' and dropped his feet on top of the table in front of him. "She's awake, _and _I held her hand, _and _she's as beautiful as ever. A little sleeping beauty she is."

Lee shook his head. "Did she hold your hand willingly, Fred?"

He thought about her for a moment before shrugging. "Kind of."

George just laughed and slapped him on the back. "You know, I bet she'd be mighty impressed with the shop if we got it open."

Fred got a semi-maniacal look in his eye. "I think you're onto something, Georgie."


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Hello. I could give you a million excuses on why I took such a long absence from my stories, but let's just say it was life that got in the way. After checking all the notifications I got when I was gone I realized that I got quite a few rather cruel reviews/pms about things like grammar mistakes and having terrible plot essentially… they made me a little nervous about continuing to write. I hope that everyone puts a little thought into how much effort and time and passion goes into writing before leaving a review. I'll leave it at that.**

**I hope you enjoy this chapter. This might possibly be the longest chapter I have _ever _written.**

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything**

* * *

**Chapter One: His Laugh**

When Hermione woke up the second time it was the middle of the night. Ginny wasn't in her bed, and instead there was a lanky Weasley sprawled out on his stomach. One of his arms was dangling off the side of the bed, and his face was turned in her direction. After a quick study, she recognized the snoozing face to be none other than the man from her dreams. She'd learned to distinguish them in her First Year after she became friends with Ron, and she took great pride in the fact that they could never pull off their go to prank of switching identities on her. They always put on a big show after she identified them, pretending as though the world was ending, but she saw right through it. She knew that they secretly appreciated that there was at least one person who saw them as individuals.

Hermione was drawn from her thoughts when Fred let out a soft snore.

The image of Fred Weasley snoring had her giggling to herself under her breath which then turned into a violent coughing fit that had Fred waking up and falling straight onto the floor. In less than a second, he was at her side and pulling her up so that she wasn't curled in on herself anymore. She was breathing heavily and trying desperately not to collapse back on the mattress when Fred slipped in behind her and pulled her gently to sit up against his chest.

"Hey there, Mione, just breathe with me," he whispered.

She was tense at first before slowly she let herself relax against him. Her torso ached from her heaving body in a way she'd never felt before. She let her head fall backwards against his shoulder and shut her eyes to do as he suggested. She found that syncing her breathing with his was rather easy when his breathing was pushing her torso up and down. After a few moments of her calming down, his arms snaked around her waist, and he laced his fingers over her ribs. One of his cheeks was pressed against the top of her head.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," she whispered. Hermione didn't know why she was whispering, but she thought it might have something to do with the distinct feeling that they were doing something inappropriate. She at least knew that Molly would squeal if she saw their position.

"Rather scary actually," he hummed. "Waking up to you hacking up a lung is less than ideal." She laughed for half a moment before stopping herself and blushing.

Hermione's fingers searched for a few moments, and she sucked in a breath before tangling her fingers with his. He surprised her when he lifted her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles without any hesitation. Her skin broke out in goosebumps, and her face flushed an even darker shade.

"Um… Fred?"

Hermione held her breath after she felt him tense behind her. Fred Weasley and her _weren't _cuddly. The most they'd ever touched before this moment was a piggy back ride at the Burrow last summer and a hug right before the twins made their big exit from Hogwarts a couple months ago.

"Yeah?" His voice was soft and breathless in a way that had her heart beating faster than it had since she'd been held by Viktor Krum in fourth year. Her face was hot and red, and all of the flashes of him from her dreams were popping up in rapid succession. She didn't know why this was happening or what it meant, but what she did know was that she didn't like not knowing.

Would she ruin this moment if she asked him what was going on? After all, her and Fred weren't particularly close before she'd woken up.

Hermione mentally shook herself and made a very conscious decision to stop thinking and just allow this one moment to happen.

She sucked in a harsh breath before slowly releasing it along with all of the tension in her body. Her fingers squeezed his for a moment before she let her eyes slip shut and turned her cheek to press against his chest.

"Never mind."

He shifted, and without thinking Hermione gripped his hands where they were. He froze in his movements and whispered, "I'm not leaving, Mione. Just going to get more comfortable."

Her face flushed in embarrassment and slowly she eased her grip. "Sorry," she whispered.

"A pretty witch begging me not to leave her bed? Not something to apologize for," he huffed out a laugh that shook Hermione's body and had her too flustered to be offended by his innuendo.

Before Hermione could think up a response, he was squeezing her body impossibly closer and flipping them, so that they were laying on their sides with Fred's back to the wall and hers pressed tightly to his chest.

Hermione hadn't slept with someone since she was a toddler, so she was in completely new territory with this. Not only that, but she would definitely be considered inexperienced by most. Besides the few times she'd snogged Viktor in broom closets, she hadn't done anything.

This didn't even feel like experience, but rather like _intimacy_.

Intimacy with Fred Weasley at that.

Her last thought before she drifted off was that she couldn't imagine she'd ever be this comfortable again in her life.

* * *

Fred swore he woke up with the shit-eating grin on his face. One moment he was having a dream about him and George's opening day at the shop, and the next he was breathing in honey colored curls and covered in girl. Hermione hadn't moved the entire time she had been asleep when she was recovering from the curse, but it seemed that in the night she had shifted to completely entangle her limbs with his.

He was in the middle of musing about how her foot had ended up pressed to the base of his spine when he heard someone clear their throat. His eyes flew up, and his grin only grew at the sight of a smirking Charlie. His excitement over his older brother being home combined with waking up with this particular girl in his arms had him giddy beyond belief.

Fred managed to free one of his hands carefully to hold a finger to his lips before turning it towards Hermione's burrowed face. Charlie let out a loud snort before making a few gestures that Fred thought might mean that Mum was making breakfast, and Fred needed to disentangle himself.

He left the room and shut the door not nearly as quietly as he should've.

Hermione let out a soft huff and shifted against him.

Fred shuddered when her foot slowly trailed down his calf until her leg was flush against his. She turned her head slightly which had her cold nose brushing against the length of his collarbone where his shirt had been pulled down. After this succession of events he became painfully aware of a growing problem in the downstairs area. If she woke up and felt that, they'd be skipping every step in the book.

"Oh, Merlin," he mumbled.

Getting out of the bed was a very difficult process, but Hermione turned out to be a surprisingly deep sleeper.

Before he knew it, he was quietly shutting the door behind him and sneaking towards a shower. A _very _cold shower.

* * *

Hermione woke up to a cold bed and a nervous Ron shaking one of her shoulders.

"Mind easing up a little, Ronald?" She grumbled.

He yanked his hand back and mumbled an abashed, "Sorry."

Hermione blinked her eyes a few times and frowned up at her friend. He was glancing nervously at her covered torso.

"Mum wanted me to ask you if you wanted to come down to breakfast."

Hermione reached out to Ron, and he immediately met her halfway to help pull her up. Getting downstairs was a strenuous process, but Ron was more patient than she had ever seen him before. After a quick stop at the loo, so she could brush her teeth and take care of business, they continued their journey to the kitchen.

When they finally made it to the bottom of the stairs, Hermione leaned more heavily on him and stopped to catch her breath.

"Thanks for the help," she managed between a few huffed breaths.

She watched out of the corner of her eyes as Ron's face turned a violent shade of red, and he let out a shaky laugh.

"Of course, Mione." After a moment he added quietly, "You scared us, you know."

Hermione sighed. She was getting awfully tired of people saying that to her.

"Yes, well I'm fine now."

When they stepped into the kitchen, Molly nearly dropped the platter of sausages in her hands to beeline to Hermione.

"Oh, dear, I am so glad you have made it down!"

Hermione gave her a wan smile and allowed the woman to pull her into a seat in between Charlie and Ginny. Hermione smiled up at the dragon tamer, and had to calm her blush when he gave her an exaggerated wink. Something about the older Weasley always had her blushing like an awkward teen.

"Sleep well, Hermione?" His deep voice asked.

Hermione's brows furrowed, and her confusion only doubled when there was a thud, and Charlie let out a groan. She followed his glare across the table to Fred who was giving his brother a warning look. It took her a moment, but she finally worked out what must be happening when Fred tilted his head in the direction of Molly before glaring even more seriously at Charlie. After waking up alone, she had somehow completely forgotten about falling asleep in Fred's arms, but Charlie must have been the one to find them.

Hermione's face erupted in flames at the idea of the second oldest Weasley seeing her and Fred in such a compromising position, and she had to quickly dart her attention away when Fred's blue eyes settled on her.

She cleared her throat and returned her attention to Charlie. "How long are you back for, Charlie? Just a short visit again?"

She reached forward to pour herself some tea, therefore missing the silent exchange that happened between every Weasley present at the table. When she looked back up at Charlie, he was giving her a solemn expression. "I'll be here a while, I'm afraid."

Hermione smiled up at him in confusion, "Tired of the dragons?"

He let out one of his loud guffaws and dropped his arm on the back of her chair, "Never!" She watched as he used his other hand to push some of the eggs around on his plate. His smile slowly faded before he looked around the table and added, "Nah, though. I'll be here until the end of the war I suspect."

At those words Hermione felt a deep fear seat itself in the pit of her stomach.

_War._

She knew it was coming, obviously, but she hadn't realized until that moment that it was _here_.

She suppose she should've had that realization when Cedric Diggory's body had come back at the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Or perhaps when she'd woken up with a new scar covering half of her body. But for some reason the idea of the most distant and absent Weasley returning for good seemed to really nail it in.

Her voice was thick when she responded, "Right then." When she spun back around to face forward, she realized that her line of questioning had ruined the mood of breakfast. It wasn't until Charlie's arm closed in on her and pulled her in close to muss her hair that everyone seemed to let out the breath they were holding.

"Couldn't stay away from my favorite swot, anyway!"

Hermione scowled and pushed him away from her. "Oh, bugger off," she mumbled as multiple people at the table laughed.

The rest of the meal passed relatively smoothly with everyone fighting for the last sausages, avoiding the topic of the war, and Hermione making a valiant effort to ignore the fact that a certain twin wouldn't stop staring at her.

When an owl swooped in with the prophet Hermione gasped loudly.

"Harry! I need to owl Harry!"

Silence once again filled the room, and she glanced around with a frustrated expression.

"What is it this time?"

She looked past a scowling Ginny to Ron, and her ire grew. He was rubbing the back of his neck and glaring at his empty plate.

"Ronald?" She needled.

He sighed and said, "We aren't allowed to owl him, Mione."

Hermione blinked a few times before saying loudly, "Why on earth would we not be allowed to owl him?"

This time she turned to Molly for an answer. "Dumbledore said that it's too dangerous, dear."

"Rubbish if you ask me," Ron mumbled under his breath which earned him a smack on the back of his head from Molly.

Hermione's mind whirred as she worked out the implications of what Molly had said. If Dumbledore said it was too dangerous, then it must be because owls were being intercepted. Though, logically, she could see his point, emotionally she could hardly believe it.

Harry had just lost his last true family member, and he was being sent to live in an abusive household with no support whatsoever. It was wrong, and she could feel her righteous indignation building up in her at rapid speed.

"She's about to blow," she heard Ginny whisper.

"Everyone better clear the room," Ron sighed.

Her own curls whipped her face as she spun to glare at her two friends. "Ronald and Ginerva, don't be absurd! I am not going to blow!" After she essentially threw her curls off her face, she let out an aggravated huff. "I just think it's cruel to punish Harry in this way when what he really needs right now is the love and support of his _friends_! I'm going to have to have a word with Dumbledore myself because I will _not _stand for this." She wanted to stand up to go write a strongly worded letter to Dumbledore, but she knew that determination alone would not make her trip up the stairs any easier. She glanced around the table to see a mix of expressions. Molly and Arthur seemed to be having a silent conversation, Ron and Ginny were holding in laughs, George and Charlie were grinning at her, and Fred was giving her a soft smile that she didn't even want to begin to decipher. "Now, someone please help me up the stairs again."

"On it!"

Hermione's stomach twisted into a mess of nerves when Fred was the one to volunteer, but before she could protest he was on the other side of the table and pulling her carefully to her feet.

"Hey, what if I wanted to help!" Ron protested as he pushed himself up.

"Sorry, Ronniekins, but I have first dibs sense I worked the most 'watch the princess sleep' shifts."

They left the room to Ron's indignant stutters and Ginny, George, and Charlie's knowing smiles.

Hermione tried not to lean against him as much as she had leaned against Ron, and frowned slightly, "You had shifts to watch me sleep?" As an afterthought, she added, "And dear Merlin, stop it with the pet names!" Fred grinned down at her.

"Of course we did. Did you know you snore?"

She gasped and slapped his chest with her free hand. "You take that back, Frederick Gideon Weasley!"

He just chuckled at her which she felt from her shoulder being pressed into his chest. That feeling made her indignation filter out and be replaced with the now familiar confusion that surrounded him.

This confusion to Hermione was simply unmanageable. She _hated _it.

To make matters worse, the images of him simply wouldn't leave her mind. If she hadn't seen his eyes when she woke up, she would have amounted it to an odd, fever-induced dream, but his eyes had been the _same_.

When they got to Ginny's room, he slowly lowered her onto her bed against the wall and collapsed back onto his sister's bed.

She watched as he got comfortable before asking quietly, "Hey, Fred?"

He glanced over at her before he popped back up and leaning forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees. He stared at her steadily, and must've seen the frustration clearly on her face.

"Hey, Hermione."

She looked into his clear blue eyes and took a deep breath. "Why did you take the most shifts to watch me?"

She watched his face carefully as her question washed over him, but he showed no immediate reaction besides dropping his cheek into his hand and quirking his head at her. There were a few moments of silence where they studied each other before he said, "I think Ron might fancy you, you know?"

Hermione's eyes widened and for the first since entering the room, she averted them.

When she didn't respond, he said, "I take it you fancy him back then?"

"No!" She shook her head vehemently before a blush took over her face, and she turned her head back in his direction. "I mean… maybe? I don't know."

It was the truth. If he'd asked her before the whole ministry incident it would have been a resounding yes, but everything that had happened in the two days she'd been awake left her feeling unsure. Did she fancy Ron?

Hermione's eyes were focused on his feet, but when Fred stood she returned them to his face.

Something in his expression was different than before. Maybe in his eyes.

"Well, I've got to go work on the shop with Lee and George."

Hermione reached out a hand to stop him, but he was out the door before she could say anything, leaving her somehow even more confused.

* * *

Fred was still beating himself up for bringing his brother up at all by the time he made it to the shop. George and Lee were at the front sending things flying to shelves when Fred walked down the stairs from their flat.

"I've mucked it," he exclaimed with his arms spread wide.

Lee rolled his eyes, and George gave him withering look.

"Knew this would happen," Lee teased. Fred let out a loud groan before moving to one of the boxes to start helping them.

George glanced over again before saying, "So how exactly did you mess it up?"

"Well, Georgie, it may have been something like me telling her Ron fancied her."

At that, both George and Lee dropped their wands to their sides and gave Fred equally dumbfounded looks.

"Why in Merlin's saggy balls would you do that!" George yelled.

"_Well, _Georgie, I may have done it because she questioned me about why I took all the shifts, and I panicked!"

Lee, forever the reasonable one, steepled his hands in front of him and said, "Just because you said Ron fancies her, doesn't mean she fancies him back."

Fred tossed his head back and forth and squinted his eyes, "That's true, except I may have followed that statement up with asking her if she fancied him, and she may have responded by blushing and saying, 'maybe.'"

George slapped his hand to his forehead, before turning back to his previous task and saying lightly, "You're right, Freddie. You've mucked it."

* * *

The next morning, Hermione doped herself up on potions and dragged her achy body and shrunken trunk downstairs to finally go home to see her parents. The full Weasley welcoming committee was there to see her off despite the fact that she would be back in just a couple weeks to move into Grimmauld Place with everyone.

She hadn't seen Fred since their conversation after breakfast the previous day, so when she entered the room, she immediately sought him out. She couldn't explain her disappointment to anyone, let alone herself, when she didn't see him.

After giving everyone the mandatory goodbye hug, she turned to George and asked quietly, "Where's Fred?"

George's eyes widened for a moment before his face split into a large smile. She narrowed her eyes at him, but he just smiled bigger. "He's just at the shop, Hermione. It's only a couple weeks, and he is _very_ busy." George winked conspiratorially at her, but the idea that Fred had been the only Weasley too busy to send her off left a sour taste in her mouth.

Her expression grew pinched before she forced a smile and responded, "Right. Too busy. Got it."

Arthur stepped up to her then and gave her a soft pat on the shoulder, "I'll be coming to get you to bring you to Grimmauld in two weeks, Hermione."

She gave him a tight smile and patted his hand, "Yes, thank you so much, Arthur."

She glanced around the room one more time before grabbing some floo powder and calling out her address.

When she stepped through it was to an eerily quiet house.

"Mum? Dad?"

She dragged her trunk to the base of the stairs and pulled her wand from her pocket. A dark feeling settled in her stomach as she warily crept through the dark household. All the blinds were drawn, and the house was in the same pristine condition it was always in. That feeling when Charlie had mentioned the war the day before returned, and she stopped herself from calling out to her parents again out of fear that someone could be in her house.

She was creeping through the kitchen when a large slip of parchment on the breakfast table caught her eye.

_Hermione,_

_We've travelled to a last minute conference in Bristol. We will be back tomorrow. Leftovers are in the fridge. Love you, dear!_

_-Mum and Dad_

She let out a sigh of relief before collapsing in one of the chairs.

It seemed as though every time she came back from Hogwarts she drifted further away from her parents. It was becoming more and more apparent that there might possibly never be a time where she wasn't living two vastly different lives. And with the war coming…

The _war._

Her best friend in the world was Harry Potter, _and _she was muggleborn. She'd read enough papers and books about the first war to know that both of those things meant that she wouldn't be safe. By association that meant that her parents wouldn't be safe.

Hermione stood and walked determinately to her room to find her books and notes. She had research to do.

* * *

Two weeks could not have passed slower for Fred.

He threw himself into developing more products and trying to decide if he really had ruined his chances when he had told Hermione that Ron fancied her. He wasn't even sure if what he said was true, but if Ron _did _fancy her, he knew it couldn't possibly be for the right reasons. Ron got annoyed by what Fred saw as Hermione's best qualities. This was a messy line of thinking that only made him bitter towards his brother.

The truth of the matter was that Fred was completely content to keep his feelings bottled up for the rest of his life.

But then she had almost died.

Finding out that Harry and his band of lions had traveled to the ministry, and that some people had been injured had been a terrifying moment for him. He had been so focused on Ron and Ginny until Ron had asked Pomfrey about Hermione.

_Fred and George had rushed to the Hogwarts hospital wing when they'd received the frantic Patronus from their mum regarding the mess the golden trio had managed to get themselves in at the Ministry. Fred was confident in saying that was the first time he'd truly felt fear. Even back in their fourth year when Ginny had been recovering from having Voldemort in her head, he had been more sad than anything. _

_When they showed up and realized that Ron and Ginny were fine, he felt rather silly for being scared at all. That is until they told him about Sirius, and Voldemort actually returning. Then it got even worse when Ron finally spoke up._

"_Madame Pomfrey! Where's Hermione!"_

_Fred felt like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart in their hands. He looked around frantically and realized that his entire family was there except for Hermione and Harry. _

"_What happened to Hermione?" He asked breathlessly as he backed up to look up and down at the rows of beds. Neville and Luna were a few beds down with their heads bent together, furiously whispering, and Remus was there with a few aurors. The one directly across from them had the curtains drawn and a few healers from St Mungos bustling in and out of it. He thought he might vomit. He spun back on his baby brother and sister. "What happened to her!" _

_Ron and Ginny both looked shocked at the amount of emotion on his face, but the only thing that calmed him down was George's clammy hand squeezing his. _

"_Dolohov got her," Ginny whispered from her cot. _

_Everyone present grew even more pale at the mention of Antonin Dolohov. Fred's grip on George's hand tightened. The man who had killed his and Georgie's namesakes had gotten his little witch. _

_Before anybody could stop him, Fred ripped his hand from his brother and beelined for the curtained bed._

"_Frederick Gideon Weasley!" He vaguely heard his mother screech, but it was too late. Before he knew it he was staring at an unconscious and heavily bandaged Hermione. Her entire torso was wrapped in bandages and her face was twisted in pain, but she was subconscious. His eyes landed on the steady rise and fall of her chest, and he let out a breath. He didn't tear his eyes off of her breathing until Harry's voice broke him out of it. _

"_I knew it," he croaked._

_Fred's eyes flew to Harry, and he instantly regretted it. He was pretty sure there was nothing sadder in this world than the boy who lived crying. Harry stared at him completely unashamed from his place next to Hermione. Fred's gaze landed on Harry's hand intertwined tightly with hers, and he couldn't help but wrinkle his nose. _

_Choosing not to acknowledge his tears, Fred asked, "Knew what?"_

_Harry surprised Fred by smirking at him. "That you love her." _

_Fred felt his face get hot as he threw his hands up, "Love her? That's Icky Ronniekins job. I think Voldy might've hit you a little too hard tonight, huh?"_

_His terrible comeback made him cringe, but Harry let out a watery laugh before finally turning his all-knowing stare away from him and back to Hermione. Fred watched nervously as Harry's smile faded. _

"_You'd be good for her I think. Ron… he's just…" Harry tossed his head around as he searched for the right word. He glanced up at Fred and finished with, "... not it."_

After that night, Hermione was essentially all he could think about. He spent nineteen days replaying his small conversation with Harry over and over again in his mind, and he'd just decided that it was possible Harry's words held some truth when she woke up and looked at him the way she had. She'd been confused and scared and then something warm had filled his eyes, and it was a look that she had never dared to bestow on him.

So yeah, Fred was in trouble.

He was pulled from his thoughts and his cauldron when George's voice rang through the backroom.

"Hey, Freddie, Dad's gonna leave without you if you don't hurry!"

Fred's eyes flew to the clock on the wall. "Oh, bollocks."

He placed a stasis charm on his cauldron before sprinting for the floo connection upstairs. He passed a smirking Lee and George on the way, and didn't even bother saying anything in response.

When he stepped through, his father was waiting for him with Remus.

"Fred, I almost left without you," his father grinned at him. He was nothing if not predictable.

"Glad you didn't, Dad." Fred held a hand out to his old professor. "Remus, good to see ya!"

Remus gave a tired smile and gave Fred's hand a hearty shake. "You as well, Fred."

His dad clapped his hands together, "Now let's go fetch our Hermione, yeah?"

The first thing Fred noticed when the flooed into Hermione's home was that it was _nothing _like the burrow. It was stark and clean, and he would really call it a house way before he'd call it a home. Before any of them could even step further into the room, Hermione's voice floated in from somewhere in the house.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

"No, Hermione! You were barely home two weeks, and now you're off again to spend the summer with your friend's family rather than your own!"

"Mum, you don't understand. I have to-"

"How am I supposed to understand when you won't tell us anything about this _magical _world of yours!"

"Jean, dear, they're going to be here any moment. Maybe we should table this for later."

"When's later, Daniel? She probably won't even be home for Christmas! First, we get a letter from your headmaster saying that you wouldn't be home for a couple of weeks following the end of the term, then when you _did _come home, you immediately tell us that you're leaving again in two weeks! This is absurd!"

His dad gave Fred a look before clearing his throat rather loudly and calling, "Hermione?"

There was a loud clatter as if someone dropped something, and in seconds Hermione appeared in the doorway that led to what looked like the dining room. The first thing Fred noticed was that her eyes were a little watery and her cheeks were flushed. She gave them a forced smile before saying over shoulder, "Mum and Dad, Mr. Weasley, Professor Lupin, and Fred are here."

A woman appeared behind Hermione with a very familiar pinched expression on her face. She whispered something in Hermione's ear before stepping forward to shake all of their hands.

Fred only looked away from Hermione when her mother appeared right in front of him and for the first time gave a genuine smile.

"Hello, Fred. You're one of the twins?"

He grinned at her. "One and the same." Jean smirked before putting a hand up to the side of her face.

"You know… she won't admit it, but I think our Hermione is quite taken with you," she whispered. Fred's eyes returned to Hermione only to see that she was having a hushed conversation with the man who must be her father.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, Mrs. Granger." He leaned forward and lowered his voice as well, "I'm quite taken with her as well."

Jean let out a happy laugh and smiled at him pleasantly. It was like the conversation they had overheard hadn't happened at all.

After a few more minutes of small talk, Hermione pulled her trunk into the room and announced that it was time to go. She still looked rather flustered, and when her mother pulled her into a hug and whispered something else in her ear, a fresh wave of tears filled her eyes. When Fred reached down to shrink and take her trunk, he heard her whisper back, "I told you, mum, everything is fine. It's going to be a good year. I'll write lots. Promise."

It wasn't until that exact moment that Fred realized that Hermione's parents must not know about the war. And if they didn't know about the war, he doubted they knew about how close she had come to death just a month ago.

"Hermione, you ready?" Remus asked.

"Yes, Professor Lupin. Thank you for coming with Mr. Weasley to escort me back."

"It's nothing, Hermione. And please call me Remus. I haven't been your professor for a few years now."

Hermione flushed and said, "That might be difficult."

_Finally_, her eyes landed on his, and he tried to convey as much reassurance in his smile as he could.

"Hi, Fred." Her voice was soft and stuffy, and the two weeks of torture suddenly felt worth it.

"We missed you, Mione."

She rolled her eyes and went to hit his arm, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a tight hug. After a few seconds she sniffled against his chest and stepped away from him. She hugged both of her parents before they flooed her into Grimmauld.

She thanked them one more time before rushing off to the room she claimed every time they stayed at Grimmauld. Fred watched her go as his mum, Ron, and Ginny rushed into the room.

"Where'd Herms go?" Ron asked.

"She's not feeling too well," his dad immediately responded. "I'm sure she'll be down for dinner, Ronald."

"Oh my! Perhaps I should fix her something up right now."

Arthur pressed a kiss to the top of her head and said quietly, "Just leave her for now, Mollywobbles."

* * *

Hermione didn't chance leaving her room until well past midnight. There were many knocks on the door, but she pretended she was sleeping.

The only person she wanted to talk to was Harry, and they still had a few weeks before they were set to get him from Privet Drive.

At half past midnight, she crept down the two flights of stairs and made her way to the library.

When she got there, she paused in the doorway, and took a deep breath in. She found a book on the topic she had been thinking about all day before making her way towards the sofa and fire. She had just settled in when a throat cleared near her.

Her head snapped up and sitting in the armchair across from her was Fred.

"Do you have a tracking spell on me or something!" She snapped.

His eyebrows shot up, and she sighed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Fred simply smiled at her before standing and moving to sit next to her on the couch. He leaned over and read the title of her book before her hand could come up and cover it.

"_The Mystery of the Mind: Memory Charms Explored_?" He looked back up at her face to see her biting her lip nervously, and he let out a huff of air. Maybe it was best not to question her on her reading material at the moment. "I had a feeling you'd come down eventually, and that when you did, you'd come to the library."

Hermione's eyes widened, and she took a moment to really look at him. He looked tired, that much was obvious, but the soft look in his eyes that she had just begun to notice was still there.

"You waited up for me?" She asked slowly.

Normally, Hermione would expect him to respond with something suave and not remotely serious. Instead, his concerned expression remained and he spoke softly.

"I thought you might want to talk about it." She looked away from him and blew a curl away from her face.

"About what exactly?"

He reached out and took her hand carefully in his. "About what we overheard your parents saying this morning, Hermione."

As soon as his hand touched hers, she felt a sense of calm wash over her that she hadn't felt since he'd held her in her bed two weeks ago. The majority of her dreams since she'd woken up had centered around Fred Weasley and those thirteen images she'd seen in her cursed slumber. He was haunting her.

"How much did you hear?" She managed.

"We showed up right as your mum yelled about you barely being home two weeks."

There was a long silence after that where Hermione tried to gather her thoughts, but Fred just sat patiently through it.

"It's harder than I imagined," she finally whispered. He didn't respond, so she kept going. "I don't know how to bridge the gap between my magical life and my muggle life." She dared to look up at Fred, just to see him staring at her imploringly. She sighed, and her free hand moved across the title of her book. "And with the war, I'm starting to think it's not possible."

"Of course it-"

Hermione's eyes welled up, and she interrupted him before he could finish, "It's not, Fred. Not if I intend on standing by Harry. And I _do._"

She could tell Fred didn't know what to say to that, so she pulled her hand from his and absently massaged it with her other.

"Harry's going to be Voldemort's number one target, and I'm Harry's muggleborn best friend. That makes _me _an even bigger target than other muggleborns."

Fred wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She surprised him by burrowing into his chest. "They're not going to harm you or your family, Hermione. Dumbledore will make sure of it."

"Do you know what they did to muggleborns' families in the first war, Fred?"

He squeezed her tighter, and she knew she didn't have to give him the answer.

"I'm assuming you have a plan then?"

"Not yet," she mumbled.

In the silence that followed, she found herself wanting to ask him again what was going on between them.

She pulled away with the question on the tip of her tongue when Fred suddenly let out a loud laugh.

Hermione was struck by the image.

She'd seen and heard this moment before. His eyes had crinkled the same way. His hair had been the same amount of messy. His laugh the exact same volume and length.

She gasped and backed away from him like she'd seen a ghost, and his laugh turned into a frown.

"Hermione?" He asked nervously. "I wasn't laughing at you. Swear. It was about something Georgie said earlier."

She jumped up from the couch and walked backwards away from him. Now she was absolutely _sure_.

Somehow her fevered dreams were glimpses of her future. Her future with _Fred_.

She backed up until her back hit the bookshelf.

"Hermione, what is it?"

Hermione shook her head vehemently and squeezed her eyes shut.

Fred stood and that was just too much for her.

"I have to go," she mumbled before fleeing the room completely.

* * *

**AN: I always imagined Hermione would have a relatively strained relationship with her parents. I can't imagine it'd be easy for a muggleborn to stay close to their parents once they left for Hogwarts. **


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: I know I said this story would be only romance, but I can't help but develop the friendship between Harry and Hermione. They're too pure and good. **

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything**

* * *

**Chapter Two: Purple and Orange Robes**

Fred didn't know what happened. One moment she was cuddled against his side, and then the next she was staring at him like he was an inferi or something another. She'd looked so anxious and scared as she backed away from him, and when he finally stood to follow her, he could do nothing but stare as she ran from him. She had _actually_ run away from him. You could imagine what a girl you fancied running away from you did for one's ego. It wasn't good.

_Something_ had changed in Hermione when she'd woken up after the Department of Mysteries. She was paying closer attention to him than ever before, but he wouldn't necessarily call it good attention. He made her nervous, but not in the way he usually made birds nervous. It was more like he'd done something very wrong, and she was trying to figure out his motives.

He supposed he'd take anything at this point, after all, his feelings towards her had changed after the ministry as well.

Fred sighed deeply and brushed his hair back from his face. He collapsed back onto the sofa and threw his arm over his eyes. He was going to have to work on his patience if he was ever going to finally have a break through with Hermione.

* * *

Hermione spent days disappearing into the many hiding places of Grimmauld Place and doing something that always brought her comfort.

Studying.

She made detailed notes in her journal of every image of Fred Weasley that her mind supplied her with. The ones that concerned her were the last two of the sequence. His mop of red hair leaning over to press kisses to a heavily bandaged wrist and the last one. Blood dripping down his freckled temple. That one never failed to send shivers running down her spine. There was no doubt it was Fred. And there was no doubt that the blood was from a terrible wound. The images flashed in front of her eyes then. His eyes fluttering closed as blood continued to pour down the side of his face. His freckles standing out in contrast to his pale, sickly skin. It made her feel ill and wary of the future.

She wrote down every question she had (which were many). There were just a few that she continued to ask over and over again.

_At what point in her life did the visions end?_

_Was the last one when her own life ended?_

_Were they connected to the war?_

_Why Fred Weasley?_

The only conclusion that she could come to was that her magic was trying to tell her something, and though Hermione was known for following logic and her brain, just this once she decided it might be best to follow her magic and her heart. Her gut was telling her that she'd had these visions for a reason. But _honestly_ why couldn't they be about Ron or Harry or Ginny? Fred gave her heart palpitations and made her entire stomach twist into a mess of those so called butterflies. It was ghastly.

After two weeks of hiding and introspection, she came to her final conclusion.

Yes, she, Hermione Granger, was going to go with the flow.

It was a tall order for sure, but she would be doing her best starting as soon as she had a good and honest talk with Fred.

It was with that determination that she marched herself downstairs in hopes that Fred was there. She was wording her perfect apology for running away from him when she ran headlong into someone else.

"Oh! So sor-" She trailed off when she pulled back to meet the emerald green eyes of her best friend. "Harry!"

Tears welled in her eyes as she threw her arms around his neck and crushed him close to her. With her eyes squeezed shut, she pushed her chin tightly into the crook of his neck. All thoughts of Fred disappeared in the arms of Harry.

"Oh, Harry," she whispered.

After a few moments of him tensely standing in her arms, he slowly reached out to wrap her in an embrace. "Hey there, Mione."

"Oi! Let the man breathe!" Ron bellowed from somewhere behind Harry. Hermione reluctantly pulled back and rested her hands on his cheeks. He was different. Somehow he looked a lot older than he had just a month and a half ago. His eyes had a new darkness to them, and he was a good few inches taller. His shoulders were broader, but he looked like he'd lost weight from his time with the Dursleys.

"I wanted to write," she breathed out. "Dumbledore-"

"Yeah, Ron told me," he interrupted. The tension and bitterness was palpable in his tone. She could see the anger hidden carefully behind his eyes, and she felt tears well up in hers again. She blinked rapidly to suppress it. Her hands dropped from his cheeks, and she averted her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. She took a step away from him, and after a few seconds of tense silence, she felt Harry grab her shoulders and pull her in for another hug.

"Does it still hurt?" He asked quietly. His voice sounded guilty and apologetic this time, so she snuggled closer to him. Her cheek pressed against his chest. She didn't have to ask what he was talking about. She'd had a feeling that he'd spent the last month and a half blaming himself for Sirius and blaming himself for her injury.

"No, Harry. Promise."

It was a lie. Sometimes it still burned something fierce as a result of the dark magic, and she still dreamed of the maniacal look in Antonin Dolohov's eyes right before he cursed her. Harry didn't need to know that.

"I'm sorry," they both whispered simultaneously.

When they pulled away this time, Harry looked more sad than anything, and Ron was eyeing them suspiciously.

"Come on, you lot," Ron finally said. "I suppose we've got some catching up to do."

* * *

Hermione and Ron sat in silent shock following Harry's retelling of the prophecy.

"Neither can live while the other survives…" Hermione whispered. Neither Harry nor Ron reacted to her reiteration. Her mind was whirring. After a few more moments of the stunned silence, Ron finally burst.

"So you really are the bloody chosen one, huh?"

Harry laughed, and Hermione smacked him on the head. "Language, Ronald!"

"Oi, Hermione! Does it even matter when it's just us?"

She sputtered, "Well, of course it does."

Ron simply rolled his eyes before turning back to an amused Harry. "Well that prophecy just makes it simple, doesn't it?"

"How on earth would _that _make things simple, Ronald?" Hermione glared.

"Stop Ronald-ing me," Ron narrowed his eyes before waving a dismissive hand and turning to Harry with a grin. "We just have to make sure golden boy over here is the one that survives."

Harry rubbed the back of his head and smirked, "Shouldn't be too hard, right?"

Hermione was thoughtful for a moment before giving Ron a curious expression, "I suppose you're right, Ronald."

Ron's eyes widened before he pointed an accusatory finger at her, "Bloody hell! I'm going to ignore the fact that you just called me Ronald because you admitted I'm right about something!"

"Honestly!" She sighed as Harry and Ron both burst into a fit of laughter.

They spent another hour talking about both the prophecy and Harry's odd interaction with Horace Slughorn before Ron announced that he was going downstairs to needle his mother about dinner.

Harry and Hermione both remained in the room they had deemed Harry's and Ron's a long time ago and took a few moments to study each other. It was Harry that broke the silence.

"You lied earlier."

"I don't know what you are talking about," she said loftily.

Harry gave her an indulgent smile before it dropped slowly into a heavy frown. She absently reached a hand up to rub at the start of the angry purplish scar by her collar bones. Just the tip of it was visible under the collar of her shirt and Harry's eyes latched onto it. When she caught his line of sight her hand flattened to cover it.

"It's nothing," she whispered. Harry's eyes grew impossibly more sad.

"Don't do that, Hermione. Not with me."

Slowly she lowered her hand and twisted it together with her other one painfully. Harry had grown surprisingly observant in the last couple of years. She really couldn't get anything past him.

He asked the same question from earlier, "Does it still hurt?"

"It's not bad," she said carefully.

He gave her a look and added, "You're a rubbish liar."

She sighed and looked at the ceiling, "It's just every once in a while. It'll burn like it's fresh, but it doesn't happen that often. I've done some research, and it apparently is a common side effect of a dark curse. It will fade with time." When she glanced back over at him, he was frowning with his eyes still on the scar. At home and nearly every day she'd been wearing high collared shirts to hide scarring, but today she'd absentmindedly thrown on one of Ron's old Chudley Cannon's t-shirts that left it visible. She's been so distracted today that she had hardly noticed that the first thing people looked at when they saw her was the scar.

"I'm sorry," Harry muttered miserably. "It's _my _fault we were there, _my _fault you almost died, and _my _fault Sirius is gone."

Hermione immediately jumped to her feet and sat at his side. She wrapped her arms around him and pushed her forehead against his arm.

"I will _not _sit here and listen to you spout such nonsense, Harry Potter. None of this is your fault. Sirius died fighting for what was right, and to say anything different would terribly discount his name."

He'd started to cry about halfway through her speech, and Hermione just held him tighter as the quiet sobs shook his body. She'd never seen Harry lose grip on his emotions like this, and her heart felt like it was breaking.

"And I went into the Ministry of my own volition. It was _my _choice, and I'd do it again." His wet nose made contact with her bare arm, and she felt his glasses press into her skin. She understood now that just as Harry had to be strong for the entire Wizarding world, she would have to be strong for him. She steeled her resolve. "I'm dreadfully sorry, Harry, but you're stuck with me for the rest of your life. I'll be following you everywhere."

He let out a dry chuckle that shook both of their bodies, and Hermione smiled at the small victory. One of his hands came up to grip her arms, "That's what scares me, but thank you, Mione," he whispered.

"I love you, Harry."

He pressed a kiss to her arm before straightening his spine and letting out a few more sniffles. Slowly she stood and straightened her shirt.

Right as Harry had wiped his face and cleaned his glasses, the door burst open and a smiling Ron stood in its place.

"Dinner is ready!"

Then he turned and disappeared back the way he came. Hermione smiled at Harry before taking his glasses back off his face to clean them more thoroughly.

When she placed them back on his face, she said cheekily, "Excited to see Ginny?"

He turned a soft pink before his lips slowly turned up into a smirk, "I dunno, Mione. Were you excited to see Fred?"

Before she could even react Ron's voice bellowed from the ground floor, "Hurry it up will you! Mum won't let us start 'til you're both down here!"

Right as they started to descend the stairs, Hermione pointed an accusatory finger at her friend, "We will be discussing this later, Harry Potter."

"I'm so excited," he said sarcastically before sprinting the rest of the way to avoid Hermione's swinging hand.

"You're insufferable!" She yelled right as she turned the corner into the dining room.

"Who's insufferable?" Hermione pulled to a full stop to avoid running face first into the chest of the person she had been searching for when she'd first run into Harry earlier that day.

"Fred!" She screeched in surprise. He smiled at her and quirked his head to the side.

"_I'm _insufferable?"

"No, I mean yes, but also no?" When his face twisted into an amused grin, she turned bright red and moved to walk around him. "Bugger," she mumbled to herself before taking her now regular seat beside Charlie.

When Fred dropped into the seat beside her, she gave him an incredulous look, but he dutifully ignored her in favor of swiping the platter of chicken off the table before Ron could make a grab for it. She noticed then that many more people were sitting at the table than were typical, and she could only assume that it was because of Harry's arrival.

Remus, Tonks, both the twins (who had taken to spending nearly all their time at their shop and flat), Bill with his girlfriend, Fleur, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and all the permanent residents of Grimmauld were situated in the large dining room. Harry had taken the spot in between Ron and Remus, and she could see him making nervous eyes at Ginny across the table, who was too preoccupied glaring at Fleur to notice. It was a chaotic meal with everyone trying to engage Harry in conversation, and Fleur intoning her rather haughty opinion on every topic.

Hermione was absolutely positive Fred was trying to drive her to insanity. At first she thought it might be an accident, but when his hand brushed against her for the third time, she knew it was on purpose. The first time it was just their hands brushing as she reached for the potatoes, but then his leg moved over so that the length of their thighs were pushed together. Then the third one really just pushed her over the top. He laughed and leaned back in his chair, only for his arm to land on the back of her own chair, his fingertips brushing against the skin on the back of her arm next to Charlie. Her initial reaction was to yank away because of the jolts his touch was sending through her entire body, but she swallowed that down in favor of sitting tensely beside him. When she finally glanced up from her plate, Harry was smirking at her from down the table.

"Arrogant prat," she mumbled to herself.

Seconds later, Fred's arm tightened around her to pull her into his side. "What was that, Hermione?"

Hermione's face flamed at the closeness of his face and she said weakly, "I don't believe I was speaking to you, Fred Weasley."

He smirked, "Then who, may I ask, were you calling an arrogant prat?"

She narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin up to look down her nose at him, "You may _not_ ask."

She abruptly leaned forward, so that his grip had to loosen and took her fork up again.

"Mr. Shacklebolt, how is your work at the Ministry?"

Her question launched the entire table into a heated conversation about the current state of the Wizarding government. She tried to focus on Kingsley's voice, but she yet again found herself distracted when Fred had dropped his arm back to where it was before and began to play with the ends of her curls.

She was thankful that the only people who seemed to notice Fred's closeness were Harry, George, and Fleur who was eyeing the pair with a curious expression.

It wasn't until the end of the meal that he pulled away. Ron let out a loud cough that had everyone's heads at the table turning towards him. When he coughed again, everyone's eyes widened at the puff of smoke that came out.

"Ronald, what on earth is wrong with you!" Molly screeched.

He let out one final cough that turned into a sneeze that then turned into what looked like the start of a firework flying straight out of his nose.

Hermione watched in awe along with everyone else at the table as it flew to the very center of the table before exploding into an explosion of sparks that spelled out _Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes _in large and fanciful, purple and orange letters.

That's when the warmth of Fred's arm (that she had grown reluctantly used to) disappeared, and he jumped to his feet at the exact instance that George did.

"That's right!"

"You heard it here-"

"First, Ladies and-"

"Gentlemen!"

"Opening day is-"

"Tomorrow!"

"Don't forget, and do prepare-"

"To empty your pockets!"

With that both of them leaned forward and slammed their hands together before taking their seats again to the loud applause and laughter of those around the table. Hermione found herself glad when Fred's arm dropped back to its place behind her. She leaned over when everyone was still guffawing and whispered close to his ear.

"You know, that was actually quite brilliant magic."

He pulled back with wide eyes before his face melted into a proud and pleased expression. "You'll be there tomorrow, won't you?"

She studied his hopeful expression for a moment before nodding and saying softly, "Of course, Fred. I wouldn't miss it for anything."

* * *

The next morning found her trying on all the clothes in her trunk in a way that left her feeling like a silly girl. When she eventually settled on a soft cream jumper and her muggle jean shorts, she was satisfied. The collar of the jumper covered her scar just barely, but she sighed and decided it would just have to do. She refused to change for the tenth time. After throwing on her canvas sneakers and tucking her wand in shorts just in case, she made her way down to the bottom of the stairs to see that nearly everyone was downstairs and ready to go.

"Oh, lovely sweater, dear," Molly said absently before turning towards where she had come from to yell at Ginny to hurry down.

Seconds later, the fiery red-head was latching onto Hermione's elbow and hopping on the balls of her feet anxiously.

"I am just so excited," she said unnecessarily.

"I can tell, Ginny." The girl looked around before leaning over to whisper conspiratorially.

"I mean… aren't you excited as well, Mione? Fred is certainly excited to show you."

"Hush, Ginny!" Hermione admonished. Ginny let go of her elbow to stand in front of her and latch onto Hermione's upper arms. The determination on her face made Hermione realize just how grown-up Ginny had become without her realizing. She was quite beautiful, and Harry's newly found affection for her made every bit of sense.

"Hermione…" She said quite seriously before squeezing her arms and saying, "It is Fred, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry?" Hermione asked in confusion.

"That you fancy," Ginny whispered.

"Well, I," Hermione sputtered, but she couldn't think of any way to finish her sentiment. _Did _she fancy Fred?

"He's mad about you, you know," Ginny said with a proud smile.

Right after Ginny finished that staggering statement, Molly bustled through the group of people clapping her hands loudly.

"Come along then! I'd like to beat the crowd!"

The entire walk from The Leaky Cauldron they could hear loud squeals of excitement and firework explosions that they knew must be coming from WWW. Hermione was too busy looking at all of the closed shops and shuttered windows to really notice the excitement in the air. Leave it to the twins to open a joke shop when the world otherwise seemed so dreary.

Before she knew it they were at the doors and being shuffled in along with a bustling crowd. Hermione's first thought was that she had never seen something so extraordinary.

She allowed Ginny to excitedly pull her through the throng of people from product stand to product stand. Hermione couldn't wipe the eager grin off her face if she tried. She was stalled when Ginny pulled her to a stand full of potions with a pearly sheen to them. Before she'd even stepped closer, the aroma of the love potions filled her nose due to the sheer amount of them on the stand. She stopped dead in her tracks.

Freshly mowed grass, new parchment, spearmint toothpaste, and something else that she hadn't been able to identify before, but now knew it to be the woodsy scent that had surrounded her when Fred held her in his arms that one night.

"Oh no," she mumbled to herself, but Ginny pulled her to the next stand before she could think much on it.

She was studying the Patented Daydream Charms when she felt an arm snake around her shoulder.

"Hermione!" An excited voice yelled out before a kiss was pressed to the top of her head that had her blushing down to her roots and left Ginny giggling madly behind her.

"Fred!" She exclaimed. She watched as he looked down at the box of Daydream Charms in her hands before glancing up at her with a bit of a smirk.

"Interested in our Patented Daydream Charms I see. Fancy skipping out on reality eh, Hermione?"

She thought of a million different nasty things to respond to protect herself, but instead said something she genuinely meant. "It's a brilliant bit of magic, Fred."

Just like yesterday, he looked surprised before smiling widely at her like her opinion meant a great deal to him. He opened his mouth to say something, but a puff of black smoke filled the air between them. A second later, pain erupted across her face, and she let out a startled gasp. When the smoke cleared, she was holding her cheek with watering eyes, and Fred was looking at her in complete panic.

"Oh, bollocks," he muttered.

"Fred Weasley, what was that!" Ginny squealed.

"That'll be the punching telescope," he said regretfully.

All three of them watched as a couple giggling boys ran away from the offending item before reaching out and taking Hermione's hand gently in his.

"Come along then, Hermione. I've got some bruise-remover paste in the back."

She was being pulled through the busy shop again, but this time by a much different Weasley.

When they walked by George at the till he paused in his conversation with a couple boys that looked to be about the age of first years to give them a curious look. When he saw Hermione's already bruising eye, he actually grinned which left her scowling.

"Punching telescope?" He asked knowingly.

Fred ignored him in favor of pulling her into what must be their workroom. There were cauldrons brewing against one wall and shelves filled with ingredients. There was one wall covered in spellotaped notes and drawings and shelves full of textbooks and notebooks. He let go of her hand to start digging through the cupboards for a jar of bruising paste, and Hermione took the freedom to look closer at the designs on the wall.

She was impressed to say the least. She always knew the twins were brilliant, but to see all of their aspirations and hard work brought to life was truly something to behold. She was pulled from her musings when she heard Fred clear his throat behind her. She spun, and Fred let out a low whistle.

"It got you right and true, that's for sure." He sighed before pulling a stool out from the work table behind him and setting it next to her. Without prompting, she pulled herself up onto the metal stool and sat facing him.

He immediately stepped forward and used one hand to push her knees apart, so that he was standing in between them. He opened the jar before placing the lid behind her on the table. His chest brushed against hers as he did so.

Hermione couldn't breathe as her entire vision was overtaken by the purple and orange robes.

She reacted better this time to seeing something from her dreams. That is, until her mind wandered to all of the other visions. Like a terrible countdown to the final one, they appeared in her mind's eye. By the time he had pulled away with the bruising paste in one hand and a sorry smile on his face, Hermione was deathly pale.

He stepped even closer to her and put one hand on her cheek.

"Merlin, Hermione, you're shaking."

She just continued to study his face. His bloodless, tanned face.

"Is this about the telescope? I'm sorry. I meant to warn you about them, but I forgot I suppose."

Hermione shook her head, "It's not that," she whispered. She focused her eyes on his temple, and his thumb made a sweep from just under her eye to the bottom of her cheek. When she swore she could hear the pounding of her own heart, she finally realized that he had shut the door behind them, and the sounds of the shop were nothing but a distant buzz.

"What is it then?" The concern in his eyes had her stomach fluttering. "You can talk to me, you know. I'm not all pranks and jokes. I can be quite serious when needed."

Hermione's eyes softened then and her cheek leaned into the soft skin of his hand.

"Are you scared, Fred?"

* * *

Fred found himself once again being thrown for a loop at the quick turns Hermione's moods were taking.

"That's an awfully broad question." He said in confusion.

He watched as her eyes shut, and she seemed to pull away from him slightly. Not wanting that to happen he set the paste behind her blindly before reaching up to hold both of her cheeks. She blinked up at him owlishly, and he swallowed deeply. He'd told her he could be serious and now was his chance.

"I've been scared before."

"You have?" She asked disbelievingly.

He gulped before continuing, "When I was in the Hospital Wing, and I saw you wrapped in bandages and unconscious. That was scary."

She stared at him unabashedly as his eyes dropped to where the collar of her jumper had shifted slightly so that he could see the very edge of that purple scar. Seeing this dark and terrible thing right in front of him... that scared him. What if she hadn't silenced him? He looked back up to her eyes as she studied his reaction to it carefully. And the way Hermione made his heartbeat just by staring at him? That bloody terrified him.

"What's happening, Hermione?"

He watched as she seemed to steel herself. "I'm scared, Fred."

Hermione admitting her fear to him seemed like a great deal. She took pride in being a strong and independent witch. Gryffindor through and through. Seeing her looking up at him with that expectant look in her eyes, made his heart warm despite the contents of their conversation. He allowed his hands to ghost across her cheeks before pulling her tightly to his chest.

"Is this about the war?" He asked quietly as he buried his nose in her hair.

Nothing could have prepared him for her answer.

"It's about _you, _Fred."

He pulled away and looked at her with wide eyes. After a moment of silence, she started talking, and she didn't stop. Not much of it actually made sense to him.

"What if all of these things are just leading up to the end? And I let it all happen only for you to die? Why would my magic set me up for that kind of… heartache? Why did I have to see any of it at all? What if I die? Or Harry? Or _you_?"

By the end, her chest was heaving, and her face was flushed a violent red.

"What if _you_ die in the war, Fred?" She reiterated.

At that Fred pulled her into his chest again so that there was no space between them.

"You can't know that, Hermione." He pressed multiple kisses to the top of her head before pressing his own flushed cheek against her curls. "What kind of life would it be if you spent all of it too scared to actually live? You can't push people away because you don't want it to hurt if they leave you because it's going to hurt anyway."

He pulled away again and took one look at her face to make sure she was fine before reaching behind her again for the paste.

"Now, just sit still and let me heal your bruise."

Hermione wiped at her relatively dry eyes before letting out a shaky laugh, "You just sounded like your mum."

He threw a hand to his chest and staggered away like it was a physical blow. "You wound me, Hermione!"

After another few moments of dramatics, he reached out and gently began to apply it to her bruised skin.

"Should be all healed up in an hour," he whispered.

In the aftermath of her breakdown, they were both a little uncomfortable. Fred spelled his hands clean before rubbing the back of his neck.

"Listen, Hermione, I was wondering if you wanted to-"

"Oi! Freddie!"

Both of them jumped and turned to the door right as it flew open. George's anxious face appeared.

"If you're not too busy wooing your lady love, I need some help up front!"

He disappeared without another word, and Fred turned back to Hermione.

"Right then," he said hoarsely. He pulled on one of her curls affectionately before backing away with a mock salute. "Until next time, lady love."

Right as he was about to exit the door, he sent her a wink.

* * *

Hermione took a few more minutes to collect herself before finally making her way back onto the shop floor. Seconds after she was past the till, a hand snatched hers, and she was being pulled through the shop for the third time.

"Harry!"

"I just saw Malfoy. We have to follow him!"

"Honestly," she exclaimed as she looked over her shoulder one last time.

Fred was on his knees on the ground explaining a product to a very small girl, but as if he felt her gaze, his blue eyes landed on hers. She allowed Harry to blindly guide her through the chaos and watched attentively as Fred whispered something to the girl without breaking eye contact. Then he pointed, and before she knew it, both him and the little girl were blowing dramatic kisses to her from across the shop. Hermione's face split into a grin, and her cheeks turned a soft and rosy pink. Hermione did something rather silly and out of character and reached up to pretend like she was catching the kisses before shoving her hand in her pocket. The little girl jumping up and down and clapping her hands made her grin wider but seeing the burning look in Fred's eyes made her heart pound.

Yes. Going with the flow. She could do this.

* * *

**AN: Now that Hermione has gotten that off her chest, it'll be a little smoother from now on. Maybe.**

**Thanks as always for the follows, favorites, and reviews!**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: this chapter took me a long time because I had trouble figuring out how to properly transition how much time was passing. **

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything**

* * *

**Chapter Three: A Cookie**

Fred spent days walking on air. As much as his conversation with Hermione had been worrying and just a little heartbreaking, it also made something very apparent to him.

Hermione cared about him.

She cared about him enough to be scared for his future, and that alone had him living out his wildest fantasies in his mind without the aid of the Daydream Charms. George and Lee continued to take the mickey out on him for the rest of the week, but Fred couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed. Afterall, there was nothing shameful at all about being totally and completely enamored with Hermione Granger. A little over a week after their opening day, him and George were sitting down to dinner in their flat after a particularly busy day at the shop. Something they'd discovered after moving out of the burrow was that both of the twins rather liked cooking. As much as their mum liked to whinge about it, they were doing more than just surviving without her help, they actually lived quite well.

"So…"

Fred was pulled from even more thoughts about the way Hermione had looked when she'd been blushing so prettily and catching his and the little girl's kisses by the sound of his twin's drawn out drawl.

"Yes, dear brother?"

Fred shoved a gigantic bite of potatoes in his mouth and eyed George suspiciously as he gave Fred a deadpan look. "Are you ever going to tell me what exactly you and Granger talked about in the workroom?"

Fred tossed his head around in thought before swallowing and saying, "Well, it was quite a sad conversation actually." Fred set his fork down and let out a loud sigh. George simply raised his eyebrows.

"If it was so sad, why have you been smiling like Ron when mum makes treacle tart all week?" Fred guffawed, but George's stoic look remained.

"Because as sad and confusing as it was, it was also quite enlightening." Fred paused and the easy smile on his face dropped into a solemn expression. "She's scared about the war. Said she was scared for me actually."

"Scared for you?" George asked in confusion.

"Scared I'll die I suppose."

_What if you die in the war, Fred?_

Her choked and anxious voice rang in his ears like warning bells. There was some kind of eerie certainty in the way she'd said it that had him wondering for a moment how he'd spent the whole week with stars in his eyes. He shook himself from his thoughts and looked back up at George's nervous expression.

"Bunch of rubbish if you ask me. Not even Voldy-pants himself could take down a Weasley twin!"

George's face didn't waver at his attempt at humor, and Fred sighed. George had always been slightly more serious and realistic than Fred, and though very few knew it, Fred was well familiar with this side of his brother.

"We'll be fine, George."

Fred nodded to himself and picked up his fork again.

"We'll _all_ be fine."

* * *

The next day, Fred was walking to pick-up lunch from the Leaky when he saw a familiar head of curly honey hair bouncing from across the street. Surrounding her, was a gaggle of Weasley red-hair and, of course, Harry. They must be here for supplies. Without hesitation, he sprinted across the street and latched onto her elbow to spin her around and start leading her in the opposite direction than she was going.

"Sorry, Mum! Just have to borrow this one for some business." He called over his shoulder before continuing a brisk walk that had Hermione's short legs jogging slightly to keep up with him.

He vaguely heard Ron call out, "What the bloody hell does George want with Mione?"

And then Harry's amused response, "Are you sure that's George?"

Followed by Ginny's, "You're such an idiot, Ron."

Once they were out of earshot, Fred pulled to a full stop and stepped in front of the oddly silent witch. She looked beautiful today. Hair tossed into a messy ponytail, flustered blush spread across her freckled cheeks, and a soft pink blouse. When she nervously pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and glanced up at him through her lashes, he found himself regretting not spending every evening at Grimmauld just to see her. One week had felt like a lifetime, and he couldn't even begin to imagine how it was going to feel when she went away to Hogwarts in just a few days. It was with that in mind that he asked his next question.

"Fancy some lunch?"

Her teeth released her bottom lip and her mouth parted to form a small o in surprise.

After a few seconds of silence where she seemed to study him to figure out his intentions, Fred added, "Not very nice to leave a man waiting, Hermione."

She rolled her eyes before rolling her shoulders back and giving him a rather prim look. "I suppose I could accompany you."

He couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face if he tried. He reached down and laced their fingers together, still standing right in front of her. She looked so shocked by the action that he grew nervous.

"Is this okay?"

Hermione's fingers tightened around his then, and her lips quirked up into a small smile. "Let's go to lunch before I change my mind."

Fred used his free hand to mock salute her before continuing their path to the Leaky Cauldron at a much slower pace than before. Her hand was small and dainty in his, and he couldn't help but push his thumb into the smooth skin on the back of it.

They didn't speak until they were sat down in a booth in the back, and even then it was only to order drinks and their meals. After a few moments of silence where they simply stared at each other, Hermione quirked an eyebrow and said surprisingly confidently, "So is this a date, Fred Weasley?"

* * *

Hermione's heart was pounding so hard, she wasn't even sure she would be able to hear his response if he gave one. She stared at him and watched the expressions on his face change rapidly. Surprise, confident, nervous, and then back to confident. Watching his emotions play so easily across his face was like watching her favorite play. By the time he actually did say something, she was already smiling.

"No."

Her smile dropped instantly, and her eyes narrowed into a deep glare. Regret for asking the question at all immediately flooded her system, and she recovered from her embarrassment with righteous indignation. Naturally.

"Not that I want to be on a date with you, Frederick, but why on earth would you ask a girl to lunch if not for a date?"

She could feel his immediate rejection burning up inside her which resulted in her using his full name as a weapon. A tactic that worked quite well in pissing Ronald off, but only left Fred even more amused,

"And even more so, drag her away from her _friends_ on a day when she has things she would _much _rather be doing?"

When he simply stared at her with that infuriating mischievous smirk of his, she huffed loudly and jumped to her feet. She needed to leave. She needed to leave and pretend she'd never asked the question in the first place, and then go back to a world where Fred Weasley was just her friend's older brother and not this boy who she couldn't stop thinking about. Had she made up all his lingering looks and flirtations in her mind? Was he playing with her? Was she some kind of prank?

_No._ Hermione _refused _to be a punchline.

She went to walk out, but Fred's hand snapped out and yanked her into the booth beside him.

"Fred! Stop it!"

She tried to stand up again, but his lanky arms slipped around her waist and held her there.

"Hermione," he whispered in her ear. She repressed the urge to shudder and weakly fought his hold on her.

"Let me go this instant," she mumbled and without much conviction. Her eyes pointed steadfastly on the table, and her face turned a violent shade of red.

"Hermione," he whispered again.

She stopped fighting at the desperate tone in his voice. She'd never heard him speak to her like that. She'd never heard him speak to _anyone _like that.

As soon as she had stilled, he started speaking to her again. His breath ghosted across her cheek, and she tried not to inhale the subtle smell of spearmint toothpaste. She could feel goosebumps prickling the skin of her arms. "This isn't a date because I want our first date to be a proper one. One where I ask you a few days in advance, and I wear my best robes. I'll buy you flowers and chocolates-"

"I don't like chocolate," she mumbled.

"Flowers and sugar quills then."

"Not roses."

"Oh no. Something pretty and natural like lilies or lilacs."

"I like lilies." His arms tightened around her, and she relaxed into him.

"And you'll put on your nicest dress, and Ginny will force you to wear make-up which you'll immediately wash off before I pick you up. Then we'll go to a restaurant that's not a pub, and I'll save up so you can order whatever you want. You'll impress me by being able to speak French, and I'll impress you with my sharp wit and gentlemanly behavior. Afterwards, I'll take you to something worldly and educational, like a muggle museum, and I'll let you drag me around to every exhibit. At the end, I'll take you home and give you my coat in case you're cold, and then I'll give you the most passionate kiss of your life right there at your doorstep. You'll be so wooed by the entire thing that our next date will be the very next day."

"Is that so?" She asked loftily, but she knew he was right. She was wooed just hearing about it.

"Quite right." Fred's thumb moved against her ribs, and she felt goosebumps spread across her skin. "And maybe it won't happen like that, but that's what's fun about it."

She finally moved her gaze from the grain of the table to his bright blue eyes which were looking at her with an undeniable fondness.

"For now…" he mumbled, his eyes darting quickly down to her lips before returning to her curious eyes. "You'll have to settle for a not date in the Leaky Cauldron where we split the bill and talk about mundane things such as your insane course schedule for sixth year and what Ron has done to make you mad today."

She let out an undignified snort, and his face erupted into a brilliant grin.

"Does that sound okay?" He asked unnecessarily.

"I suppose so," she said breathlessly, and he pressed a soft kiss on her forehead before releasing her from his hold.

She went to move back to the other side, and she felt his eyes on her all the way up until she'd settled and quickly pushed her loose curls behind her ears. As he stared at her, she felt the need to apologize for her quick temper.

"Fred…"

He put his elbows on the table and dropped his chin into his hands, "Yes, dear?"

She gave him a mock glare before it settled into a soft and apologetic smile. "I'm sorry about my little… fit. I guess you make me nervous."

He grinned, "I tend to have that effect."

"Yes, well, I don't deal well with not knowing where I stand." After a moment of contemplative silence, she added, "Or with rejection, I suppose."

Fred winked at her and said in amusement, "I doubt there's much you could do that would make me reject you, Hermione."

She blushed and stuttered for a moment before he seemed to take pity on her and changed the subject.  
"I actually am curious what Ron has done to make you angry today."

"Oh, Fred! Let me tell you. I was in the library this morning, and…"

* * *

Fred couldn't even begin to describe his relief and joy when the rest of their lunch was spent with animated conversation and lots of laughter. Hermione, despite what everyone loved to say about her, had a rather great sense of humor. She was smart and quick with comebacks, and everytime she would bite her lip after a particularly brutal sarcastic comment, he got even more excited. They'd never truly sat down for a conversation like this where they talked about normal things and had no other nosy friends present. It was everything he could've hoped for, and it was only ruined when he realized he'd been gone from the shop for over an hour.

After they'd both paid for their meals, they began the walk back towards the shop and the places Hermione needed to go for supplies. Fred's goodbye at the doors to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes was interrupted when a frantic Lee yanked him into the busy store with a string of obscenities. He made sure to blow Hermione an identical kiss to their last goodbye right before she disappeared from his view.

* * *

Before Hermione knew it, it was time for them to leave for school.

Molly and Arthur were giving the four of them hugs and well wishes for the term when a familiar voice interrupted them.

"You lot weren't going to leave without saying goodbye were you?"

"George! Fred!" Ginny yelled before launching herself at the two boys. They caught her in between their two bodies and squished her close so that they resembled a ginger, twin sandwich.

"Gin, we're going to miss your genius and stunning brain!"

"You're going to have to keep Ickle Ronnikins on his toes for us!"

"Don't let him get too comfortable!"

"We'll send you some prototypes!"

"Oi!" Ron protested, but they continued like he wasn't there.

"And remember, boys only want one thing!"

"And none of them are worth your time-"

"Or tears!"

"Especially Harry Potter!"

"Hey!" Harry weakly responded with a furious blush taking over his face at the same time Ginny rolled her eyes and said, "I'm still dating Dean, ya know?"

"And don't forget that your grades aren't the most important thing!"

"School is useless-"

"And don't let Hermione bully you into studying!"

"Or pay any mind to her study plans!"

Instead of protesting like Harry and Ron, she simply rolled her eyes and gave the twin she knew to be Fred a pointed stare to which he responded with an exaggerated wink.

"Fred and George, you will knock it off this instant," Molly scolded, but Arthur just smiled in amusement. Once they'd finally released Ginny with simultaneous kisses to her cheeks, they moved to Harry and Ron. Hermione watched as Fred said his goodbyes before he tapped George lightly on his elbow, and suddenly a great ruckus was occurring right in front of them. There was a burst of feathers and a squawk, but Hermione's line of sight was completely filled with Fred. George yelled something unintelligible behind him, and Hermione finally understood that he was causing a diversion. Fred grinned at her and all of the sudden a small box wrapped with a bow was right in front of her nose. She almost went cross eyed as she gazed at the gaudy purple and orange wrapping paper before she looked back up at Fred in confusion.

"Think of it as a going away present, Hermione."

She hesitated only slightly before reaching forward and taking it gingerly from his eager hands. "It's not a prank, is it?"

He laughed and placed a hand over his heart. "I swore never to prank you, Miss Prefect!"

She reached one of her hands up to untie the bow, but Fred's calloused fingers wrapped around hers to stop her.

"Not now. Open it tonight."

She frowned, but then a soft smile played at her features. Before she could talk herself out of it, she pushed herself on her toes to kiss his cheek softly in thanks.

"Thank you."

He reached up and tucked her curls behind her ears, pausing only for a few moments to rest his palms against her warm cheeks. "I'll miss you."

One of her hands went to rest over his, and she smiled sadly at him. "I'll miss you too, Fred."

This term might just be the longest of her life.

"You'll write me, won't you?" She asked nervously as she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. She watched his eyes dart down before moving back to hers. His eyes crinkled up in mirth.

"Everyday."

"Well, that's hardly necessary," she mumbled half-heartedly.

Before he could respond, a hand lurched backwards and whacked Fred's elbow none too lightly, prompting Fred to wrap his arms tightly around her. She burrowed her face against his chest and squeezed him as tight as she could with the present still in one of her hands, and all too soon, he was pulling away and turning back to his family with one last burning glance in her direction.

* * *

The train ride consisted of more talks of what they had seen of Malfoy at Borgin and Burkes, Lavender Brown drawing hearts on the compartment window, and Hermione staring at Luna and contemplating asking her about her visions. She really couldn't think of anyone else to ask, and she did plan on checking the library for books on dream interpretation and possibly the divination section (despite it being her least favorite of every section). Luna, however, seemed like the best bet. She would probably say something infuriatingly cryptic, but Hermione knew she would keep it a secret and not call her barmy. Which is honestly all she could hope for.

She was so distracted by these thoughts and wondering about the contents of her gift from Fred, that she didn't even notice that they'd gotten into the carriage without Harry until they were already pulling up to Hogwarts.

"Ron! Where's Harry?" She asked rather frantically, but he waved her off and continued his conversation with Seamus who had popped into their carriage at the last minute.

Hermione very nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand landed on her wringing ones in her lap, and she made eye contact with Luna.

"He'll be along, Hermione. I'm sure he's doing something important."

Hermione pulled one of her hands out to pat Luna's knuckles and gave her a strained smile. "Thank you, Luna."

She glanced over at the two boys to make sure they weren't paying attention before leaning forward.

"Luna, I need to speak with you when you're free about something…" she looked up as she tried to think of the right way to describe her situation and eventually settled on, "odd that's happened to me."

Luna simply smiled at her and said, "It's only odd if you name it so."

Hermione repressed the urge to roll her eyes and said, "Yes, well, I'm naming it so."

Luna seemed to accept this and turned her smile out the window. "Very well. Tomorrow then? After dinner?"

"Yes, thank you."

* * *

Hermione's questions of Harry's whereabouts were answered at dinner when he walked in with a bloody nose. They spent the entirety of the meal talking about what Harry had heard as well as how Snape was now the DADA professor. By the end, Hermione was very nearly bouncing on her toes to get to the present from Fred that she had stuffed in her trunk.

When she was finally ready for bed, she snatched it from the trunk and quickly slid her privacy curtains shut around her to avoid the prying eyes of Lavender and Parvati.

She reverently pulled the bow before slowly opening the box. Sitting on top was a note with Fred's surprisingly neat handwriting scrawled across it.

_Hermione,_

_Thought I'd give you some of our "brilliant bits of magic" to remember me by. Don't go daydreaming about other blokes though because it might just break my incredibly fragile yet impossibly large heart. _

_-The Handsome Twin_

Hermione grinned and then realized there was another note directly under it in decidedly messier handwriting.

_Our Dearest Mione,_

_We all know that I am actually the handsome twin. _

_Best Wishes (and dreams),_

_George Fabian Weasley_

And then _another _note under that.

_Hermione,_

_Don't listen to him. He's had one too many experimental potions and now has questionable mental health._

_Yours,_

_Fred_

Hermione took the small package of Patented Daydream Charms and tucked them away into her bedside table. She reread the note a few more times before holding it over her pounding heart and smiling rather giddily to herself. He'd signed it _yours._

She carefully placed it in the ostentatious box before sliding the entire thing gently under her bed.

When she collapsed back on her mattress and smiled goofily at the drapes, she realized how truly and deeply in trouble she was.

* * *

Hermione hadn't even spoken to Luna about where to meet, but Luna being who she is, found her in the library anyway. Hermione, being Hermione, had prepared on the off chance this would happen anyway.

"Hi, Hermione," Luna's singsong voice floated to her from across the small table Hermione preferred behind the Arithmancy section.

"Hello, Luna. Thank you for coming."

She watched her friend sink into the seat across from her and studied her. She was wearing her butterbeer cap necklace and earrings with large sunflowers on them, and her long and almost ethereal hair was in a loose braid down her back. Her usually dotty expression was slightly more grounded than Hermione was used to, and she narrowed her eyes in appraisal.

"Are you feeling alright, Luna?"

Luna laid out some of her books in front of her and smiled at Hermione in her usual way. "I feel just as alright as I've always felt."

Hermione just stared at her and nodded. "Alright then. That's good I suppose…" Hermione trailed off as she looked at the notes in front of her. She glanced around them before casting some privacy charms and turning back. "What I want to talk to you about… it really is quite odd."

Luna simply continued to smile at her, so Hermione sighed.

"You know how I was cursed at the Ministry?"

Hermione watched as Luna's light expression darkened slightly. "Yes, of course."

"Well, I was unconscious for nineteen days as my body healed, and the entire time I was having these strange… visions…" Hermione's fingers splayed out on the table in front of her. Luna looked completely unfazed.

"What sort of visions?"

Hermione blushed and averted her eyes. "There were thirteen, and they were playing on repeat. And, well… they were all about Fred Weasley."

Luna nodded almost imperceptibly, "I always thought you two would make a lovely couple."

Hermione let out a shocked cough, and her eyes widened, "Wait, really?"

"Yes, of course. Harry and I have talked about it." Her jaw dropped.

"You have?"

"Yes and he agrees."

"Wow… that's… wow." Hermione for a moment tried to imagine Harry and Luna having a conversation about her and Fred and for some reason found the image rather funny. She giggled for a moment before shaking herself and straightening her spine. "Anyway! That's not the point!"

Luna quirked her head in amusement. "It's not?"

"No!" She took a deep breath before leaning forward and whispering despite the privacy charms in place. "The point is, that the visions I had were all things that haven't happened before. Things that are starting to become reality."

Luna looked excited as she leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. "What sort of things?"

"The first one was Fred's eyes blinking down at me which I saw as soon as I woke up. The second was Fred laughing which I saw the day I got to Order Headquarters. And the third was the purple and orange fabric of his robes that I saw at the opening of his and George's shop."

"How many more were there?"

Hermione frowned and glanced down at her notes despite the fact that she already had the countdown running like an internal clock. "There will be ten more."

Luna hummed to herself and smiled like they were now bosom buddies that shared some great secret. "Well, Hermione, you may not like divination, but I believe it is quite taken with you."

Hermione grumbled. "I thought you'd say something like that."

Luna didn't really have much to say besides that, and it took Hermione straightforwardly asking for advice for her to say anything of substance.

"Your magic has given you a gift. It would be a shame to waste it." Luna after that had opened her books and started working on an essay while Hermione stared off into the distance, rather distracted.

She had never thought of it as a gift, but after thinking about all of her interactions with Fred that she had had recently, she realized that her airy friend was right.

Her magic had given her a gift.

Her magic had given her _Fred Weasley._

* * *

Fred wrote a letter the morning after he'd seen Hermione off for Hogwarts, but George had convinced him to give her one day to settle before he began his endless barrage of "love letters".

So he held off for exactly twenty-four hours before giving their shop owl, Mercury, a long and boring letter about the last two days at the shop. He'd felt dreadfully boring reading it, but imagining the way Hermione would become totally riveted by his mundane retellings had him writing it with a smile on his face.

Thus began his fulfillment of his promise to write to her everyday (with some exceptions because Mercury was, afterall, just one simple owl and did eventually grow tired. Something to which Hermione said was perfectly logical and humane.). As the weeks passed, he found their letter correspondence to be just as interesting and humorous as their lunch at the Leaky had been. He was pleased to find out that Hermione wrote with the same passion and class that she displayed in person. It made him feel unbelievable special that she shared such seemingly small parts of her life with him nearly everyday. They developed a schedule as the days went on. Hermione would receive her letter from Fred at breakfast. Write a response at some point in the day, and then send it out so that he received it just before bed. They took breaks on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Fred honestly couldn't believe how systematic he was becoming. He hadn't even realized it until George pointed it out, and even then, he wasn't terrible peeved. What was the shame in curbing some of his more out of the blue and totally spontaneous tendencies if the girl he fancied was signing her letters with _Dreadfully Yours._

It was through the letters that he learning that Ron made the Quidditch team as Keeper, that Harry was using a Potions book that was annotated by someone deemed the Half-Blood Prince, and that Lavender seemed to have successfully sunk her pinchers into his baby brother.

It was also through these letters that he learned of the Hogsmeade trip, and thus, a plan was born.

George helped him cook a brilliant meal, kept fresh with preservation charms, but the cinnamon cookies were baked completely by him. He knew them to be her favorite due to the fact that it was the only dessert she ever really fought for when it was sat in front of her and his family.

He packed it in a horrible cliche picnic basket, along with a blanket, some simple lilacs, and a special product he had developed where once it made contact with someone's lips would cause the pranked to burst into a loud and proud love ballad every time anything else touched their lips. He fully intended on giving her advice on sneaking it to Ickle-Ronnikins simply to give her a full day free of PDA and his disgusting eating habits. George had helped with a bit of the charms, but it was otherwise an independent product. One he fully planned on taking to market as soon as he got a review from Hermione.

* * *

Hermione was sitting with Neville, Harry and Ron in the Three Broomsticks when Lavender came in with her gaggle of giggling girls. She walked up to them in the middle of the boys' conversation about Quidditch and plopped herself right down on dear _Won-Won's_ lap.

Hermione and the two other boys averted their eyes awkwardly as a very showy and rather disgusting display of public affection ensued.

After a few moments where Harry tried to uncomfortable carry on the conversation, Hermione had had enough and slammed her glass on the table.

"Honestly, Ronald! Can't you go somewhere more private!"

Lavender disengaged to shoot Hermione a scathing look before hopping up with one final smacking kiss to Ron's swollen lips.

"I'll meet you at _our special place_ later, Won-won?"

"Yeah…" Ron mumbled with a splotchy blush taking over his pale complexion.

Lavender and her group disappeared back into the snow, and Hermione leveled her glare on her friend.

"Is all that really necessary, Ron?" She watched as his face morphed into something ugly, and he sneered at her.

"Why do you always have to nag?"

She let out a frustrated sigh that sent one of her curls skyward before tuning back to him. "Do you not realize how disgusting those displays are? Can't you save that for somewhere private?" His eyes narrowed dangerously, and she realized as Harry sucked in a breath that he was about to slip into one of his blind rages that always ended poorly. He did not disappoint.

"You're just jealous because no one will _ever_ look at you or touch you the way I do Lavender!"

It was childish and completely false, but the malice and the person saying it had her eyes watering before she could even blink. She jumped to her feet. Her hair was standing up on end and crackling with energy, but she fought through the tightening in her heart long enough to shove her finger into his chest.

"I can't wait for the day you pull your head out of your arse long enough to realize how terribly and horribly wrong you are, Ronald Weasley! And when that day comes, I hope you regret every _cruel _thing you have _ever_ said to me."

Before the tears could pour over, she bid Harry and Neville goodbye and disappeared out the door in a flash, not even paying attention to her surroundings or the voices that called her name.

* * *

Fred had just stepped in from the cold when he heard Ron's angry voice.

"You're just jealous because no one will _ever_ look at you or touch you the way I do Lavender!"

Fred's nervous eyes followed his brother's line of vision to a teary and enraged Hermione. He was frozen as he watched her stand and point and scream at him. When she turned away from the table, Fred's heart squeezed at the tears that were just beginning to fall. He yelled and tried to reach out for her, but she ran right past him. He stared after her for just a moment before taking a step to follow her, but Harry's voice interrupted him.

"Fred? I didn't know you were coming."

Fred's eyes darted between the table and the swinging door. He watched Hermione's form dart past the window to the left before sighing and turning back to the table she had vacated. Harry, who had also been looking out the window at Hermione, turned back to him with an exhausted expression.

"It was a surprise," Fred grumbled.

He narrowed his eyes on Ron and took a few more steps towards them. If Ron wasn't his brother, he wouldn't have recognized the flushed cheeks and downcast eyes as regret. Knowing that, he still felt anger on Hermione's behalf burning him up inside.

"You know, you're a real idiot, Ron," he said dangerously. His brother's gaze went up to him, and he watched as the regret filtered out and turned into that familiar rage.

"Piss off!"

Fred just shook his head at him, taking steps backwards as he did so. "Good one, mate. Now if you'll excuse me, I have beautiful witches to woo."

Ron narrowed his eyes. "What are you on about?"

Fred ignored him in favor of stepping out into the bitter cold and turning left. Every student he passed, he asked if they had seen Hermione, and everytime it was without luck.

After a few minutes of this, he finally saw her familiar curls bouncing as she walked slowly out of the village. He ran as fast as he dared through the snow and was a few steps away from her when a black-clad form stepped out of an alley right beside her and ran bodily into her. He reached his hands out as if to catch her, but he was too far and had to watch as she fell sideways into the snow covered pavement.

"Watch it, mudblood," a familiar voice growled out. Fred looked at the back of the head of the person as they turned to walk the way Hermione had been going, and he immediately recognized them.

"Oi, Malfoy!" Fred yelled, "Watch your bloody mouth!"

Malfoy completely ignored him and continued to angrily trudge away, so Fred went to follow.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" Hermione's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Fred?"

Fred threw a hand in Malfoy's direction. "He can't talk to you like that, Mione!"

He turned down to her sad sniffling form and his anger slowly faded away. He reached for her hand and pulled her up gently. Before she was even really standing steadily, her shivering body was thrown against his.

"Fred, I'm so glad you're here!"

"This wasn't exactly how I imagined our reunion, Sleeping Beauty."

She let out a half laugh, half sob against his chest, and he pressed his nose into her hair.

"What Ron said was utter rubbish," he growled out beneath his breath.

She pulled away and looked up at him.

He was momentarily captured by the way her freckles stood out under her blush and how tears were caught in her lashes. He reached up and brushed his thumb beneath one of her eyes before moving his fingers into the curls at the base of her skull.

"It just hurts," she started before taking a shuddering breath and finishing with, "that someone who is supposed to be my best friend, someone who is supposed to know me better than _anyone _else, could say something so _horrible_ to me."

His arm that was on her waist tightened, and he frowned down at her. "I'm sorry for him. I think mum may have dropped him too much as a child, so you really should blame her instead."

His lips quirked up when she laughed at his attempt at humor. "What are you doing here?" She breathed out.

Fred pulled one hand away from her waist to take the shrunken basket from his pocket. "I have a horribly cliche pre-first date, date planned for us, my dear."

She let out a watery laugh as she eyed the tiny basket warily, "Pre-first date, date?"

He dropped one arm to her waist and started the walk towards a snow covered hill he knew to be positioned rather privately behind the row of shops. "Yes, this won't be our first date, you see. This will be date number zero. A pre-date, to get out all the nerves before our first inevitably wonderful date if you will."

She blushed and tangled her small fingers in the fabric of his cloak just over his ribs. "I like that idea."

He filled their walk with pickup lines and fantastic (terrible) jokes he had been saving up because the effect required a live audience. He kept it up all the way until he'd laid down the blanket, cast the warming charms, and her laughs were bubbling up more often than her sniffles. She gave appropriate oohs and ahs over his superb cooking skills, and he spent a lot of the time studying her face. She somehow looked older than she had just a couple months before. She was paler and just a little skinnier like she'd been skipping out on one too many meals and pretending like the outdoors didn't exist. He wished he'd realized how he'd felt last year when they could have had time together at Hogwarts. Time to walk her to classes and watch her study, make sure she ate at every meal, snog her in broom closets and in tiny alcoves, and keep her company in the sneezy and silent library.

You know what they say about hindsight.

The way her eyes lit up when he pulled out the still warm cookies had him forgetting all the would haves and should haves. The scent of buttery cinnamon wafted between them as soon as Fred opened the container, and the moan that came from Hermione's throat had his mouth watering for a completely different reason.

George's voice of reason came to him in a moment of clarity.

_Keep it in your pants, Freddie. _

Fred cleared his throat and gestured for her to take a cookie.

* * *

As Hermione took the cookie in her hand she had a moment to collect herself enough and realize she was about to see one of the moments from her dreams. That's why when Fred snatched the cookie she picked up and shoved the entire thing in his mouth, she had the ability to react appropriately. Like she hadn't seen that moment before.

She mock gasped and watched as joy crinkled the corners of his eyes and crumbs got stuck to the dark auburn stubble on his chin. She laughed for just a moment before her giggles faded into a soft tender expression, and she sat up so that she was crouched on her knees in front of him. She bit her bottom lip as a moment of insecurity took over.

"What is it, Hermione?" Fred's low voice filled the space between them like some tangible thing. She could feel it ghosting across her skin like that moment in the booth. She slowly maneuvered around the stuff laid out between them until she was balanced right in front of him on her knees.

She moved her hands to rest on his cheeks and slowly started to brush the crumbs off his face with the tips of her fingers. "You're such a mess," she whispered out of fear of disturbing the tender bubble surrounding them. After a few moments of staring determinately at what she was doing, she slowly blinked to look into his eyes. His pupils were so large there was just a small ring of that bright blue surrounding them.

"Hey, Hermione? I know I said I would wait until the end of our first real date to kiss you, but I really want to do it right now."

His tone had matched her soft one, and his large hands reached up to cover hers completely. She took a deep breath before releasing it with a nervous but sure smile. "We could pretend it didn't happen. I wouldn't mind."

Her eyes darted down to watch his adam's apple bob up and down. One of his hands left hers to snake around her waist and before she knew it her eyes were closing.

All thought left her brain, a feat not easily achieved, as soon as his lips touched hers. She didn't have a thought in her mind about how obscenely her body pressed to his as she sought out his warmth, or how his hands were everywhere. This first kiss was relatively chaste with just their lips touching each others.

She pulled back with wide eyes, and his arms tightened where they were holding her body to his. Somehow she'd ended up with one of her knees on his thighs and the other to the side as he sat with his legs sprawled, and his fingers were leaving burning trails, even through the many layers she had donned just that morning.

"Holy Merlin's saggy-"

She interrupted whatever expletive he was sure to be about to say by pressing her lips to his again out of curiosity and pure want. It was her who traced the seam of his lips with her tongue and pushed for more, but Fred was more than obliging. Every time they broke apart for air or a new angle Fred managed single words.

"Daydream-"

Her hands in his hair.

"Charms-"

His fingers snaking through the buttons of her muggle coat.

"Got-"

His lips trailing down her throat.

"Nothing-"

Her nails on his scalp.

"On this."

There was one final kiss before they pulled away and just blinked at each other rather dumbfoundedly. Hermione had kissed boys before, but it had _never _felt like that. Hermione immediately tried to categorize what was different with Fred compared to the others, but Fred's warm fingertips pressing into the wrinkles at her brow interrupted her train of thought.

"You shouldn't have kissed me like that, Mione."

Her lips turned down into a frown, and he kissed it softly away.

"I'm never going to be able to replicate that with a charm, you absolute minx of a woman."

Hermione couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled to the surface if she tried. Leave it to Fred Weasley to turn an absolutely horrid day into something so completely magical. It was only after her laughter died down, and she had a chance to truly breathe that she remembered exactly _how _obscenely she had wrapped her body around his. She went to pull away, but he pulled her in for one more kiss. He pulled away but left his forehead resting against hers.

"First Friday of the Holidays. You, me, muggle restaurant, flowers, sugar quills, speaking french, museums, and more kisses."

It wasn't a question, but Hermione still found herself nodding her response. She opened her mouth to verbalize it, but a piercing scream broke through their self created bubble.

Hermione jerked away from him so fast, she fell flat on her bum beside him. They made eye-contact for barely a second before they were both scrambling to their feet with their wands at their sides to run towards the terrifying noises. When they came upon the path from Hogsmeade, it was to a sight that had Hermione's heart stopping.

A girl was suspended about six feet in the air with her hair whipping viscously in the wind. She was letting out a nearly inhuman scream that Hermione could feel in her bones, and it was only when the girl dropped into the snow that Hermione recognized her as Katie Bell.

When the screams stopped an eerie and heavy silence filled the air before all at once, multiple people ran towards her.

There was a flurry of activity and panic as everyone tried to figure out what happened, and it was only interrupted by the stationed aurors and professors showing up. Hermione watched from her place between Fred and Harry as Katie was emergency portkeyed to St Mungo's and a large and gaudy necklace was carefully contained by the aurors.

"Come on, Hermione. We should get back to the castle." Hermione nodded absent-mindedly at Harry and went to follow before freezing in her footsteps and turning back to Fred.

He was pale and had a dark and clouded look in his eyes. It was then that she remembered that Katie had been rather close to the twins.

"Fred?" She asked quietly. She stepped forward and unthinking of the people around them, reached for his hand. "She'll be fine, Fred. I'm sure of it."

Fred tore his eyes away from the dent in the snow where Katie's body had collapsed and slowly returned the pressure of her fingers.

The look in his eyes had her adding quietly, "Maybe you and George could go to St Mungo's to make sure."

He gave her a weak smile before glancing at something over her shoulder.

She heard Ginny say, "Come along, you two. She'll catch up," and only moments later she found herself crushed against Fred's chest.

"You be safe, Hermione. Just one more month." He pulled away, and she watched his eyes dart to a place above her head before dropping down to give her one more burning kiss that had her toes curling and her heart pounding.

When she pulled away, she could see the desperation and anxiety clearly on his face before it was replaced with a put-upon goofy smile.

"Don't go snogging other wizards, Hermione," he said lightly.

She tilted her chin up and pursed her lips. "Is this your way of asking me out, Fred Weasley?"

"I don't know. Would you say yes?"

She rolled her eyes and blushed. "Do I really have to answer that question?"

He leaned down and gave her his trademark smirk, "Do I really have to ask?"

She kissed the corner of his lips and took a couple steps backwards. "I suppose I'm only really interested in one wizard, so you don't have to worry in that regard. Do I need to worry about other witches?"

He snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't think you understand how irresistible I am with the ladies. Something about our horrendously vibrant work robes really get them going." Fred watched a flash of insecurity appear for a moment across her face and added, "However, only one of these pining witches catches my fancy."

"I am _hardly _pining." He smiled softly at her, and she swallowed down her nerves at the intense way he was staring at her.

"You're not? Because I am not ashamed to admit that I pine after you every moment we are separated."

Before she could respond he was backing away from her and blowing her the kisses that were starting to become a tradition for them.

"I'll see you in my dreams, Hermione."

And then he was gone with a crack of apparition, and she was left in the empty pathway with a terribly hot face and an awkward sort of pain in her chest.

* * *

**AN: Wow a very long chapter! Bit of a fluffy one. A lot of relationship development.**

**Thanks as always for the follows, favorites, and reviews! I hope you guys are enjoying this story! Let me know what you're thinking of it!**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Happy new year everybody! I can't believe I have written over 250,000 words in 2019 alone! I'm proud of myself:') **

**I also am so happy with the reception I've gotten on this story! Over 100 followers already. I hope you're enjoying it!**

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything**

* * *

**Chapter Four: Explosion**

Hermione made a decision on her solo walk back to the castle that she wouldn't actively tell anyone about her… _thing_ with Fred. If people asked questions, she wouldn't _lie _per say, but she wouldn't exactly give them anything of substance.

The only people that asked questions anyway were Ron, Harry, and Ginny.

Ron was just a bit suspicious when he questioned her over dinner that night, "So what were you doing with Fred in Hogsmeade?"

Hermione's head snapped up at Ron's words, and honestly, the fact that he was talking to her at all after the stunt he pulled in Hogsmeade was quite startling. Usually after saying something so terrible, he would take a few days to stew in his prideful regret before coming back to her like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs, but this time she suspected his curiosity was too great to bare. Fred and her hadn't exactly been subtle when they'd sprinted towards the commotion hand in hand and then stayed behind after everyone had left. She found herself not caring too much what people had to say when she was in the presence of Fred, but it was always the aftermath when he wasn't there to make her knees weak that left her questioning her own conscious overlooking of secrecy.

She was snapped from her thoughts when Ron gave an impatient, "_Well?" _

"Ronald, I don't exactly see how that is _any_ of your business," she snubbed with a raised eyebrow. She watched a flash of frustration cross his face before he seemed to swallow it down with a pained grimace. His face reminded her an awful lot of what he looked like every time he had to swallow a potion.

"I was just wondering is all," he mumbled.

Hermione watched him frown down at his empty plate before sitting up straight to load it with a second helping. Her eyes darted to Harry beside him who was giving her a funny sort of smirk.

"Is it _my_ business?" He asked smugly. Harry had a subtle way of _making_ things his business without seeming nosy. It was a talent that consistently had her both envious for his lack of insults regarding _nagging_ and endlessly frustrated her for his never-ending well of information (gossip) regarding just about everyone at Hogwarts.

Hermione swallowed nervously and tried honorably to stop the blush that spread across her cheeks, but it was no use. Harry definitely noticed because his smirk spread into an amused grin.

"We're friends," she said with a nod to herself. _See_. Not _technically _a lie.

She felt someone flick her elbow quite violently, and she turned, aghast, to see the equally mischievous face of Ginny Weasley.

"_Just _friends?" She intoned with a terrible amount of implications behind her tone. Ginny had the same talent. She polished off the question with a wiggle of her eyebrows that made her smile because it reminded her so much of Fred, but she stopped at Harry, Ron, and Ginny's continued probing looks.

Now that is where it got tricky. Because answering yes to that would be an out and out lie and they would know, but saying no might end up with her dead at a young age if Ron's rapidly reddening face was anything to go by.

"What's wrong with two friends hanging out at Hogsmeade? Hmm?" She said with as much of an innocent expression as she could muster. Ron turned back to his now full plate with an inhuman grunt, and Hermione leveled glares on her two smug friends.

She shoved her book in her bag and said heatedly to Harry and Ginny, "You two are perfect for each other. Did you know that?" She watched as both their faces morphed into abject mortification before jumping to her feet and making her way out of the Great Hall before the two could say anything else.

She was grumbling to herself as she made her way to the library when a great hulking form stepped in front of her. Her ire at her friends turned into complete frustration as the oily face of Cormac Mclaggen appeared just inches from hers.

"Oh, great," she hissed under her breath. She watched with disdain as the boy threw his arm out and leaned against the stone walls beside them with a put upon air of comfortable suaveness. It took everything in her not to smack him with her book.

"Where you off to all by yourself, Hermione?" There was something about his voice that always sent the bad kind of shivers racing down her spine.

Hermione had been fending off Cormac's unwanted advances all term, but the git didn't seem to understand the meaning behind the word 'no'.

"Just the library," she said with a tense and totally in-genuine smile.

She made to walk past him, but his large meaty hand on her arm had her freezing in her steps. "Fancy some company? I was just thinking I needed to get some studying done."

Cormac was a painfully simple human being, and one thing she knew for sure was that he didn't _ever _go to the library. She pulled away from his grip, but he just started following her on her trek down the hall. "Not really, no," she said shortly.

"Come on then, Hermione. What's with these mixed messages you're sending me?" He still had that arrogant smirk, but there was an edge to his tone that had her discomfort skyrocketing. She reached into her pocket and gripped her wand tightly between her fingers. She'd always assumed he was harmless. He _was _harmless, right? She didn't want to pull the Fred card, but if he took it any further than these disrespectful comments, she wasn't above it. On top of that, she had no idea where his thought that she was sending mixed messages was coming from. She'd never given him anything but sort of polite rejection.

"Cormac, I've actually forgotten something in my room, so you really should continue on by yourself."

It was at least a five minute longer walk to Gryffindor Tower, and she was hoping that he would finally catch on and leave her alone. Suddenly, pounding footsteps could be heard behind her, and she yanked her arm away to turn around. Ginny's fiery red head turned the corner with her hair spiraling behind her as she ran. In just a few seconds, Ginny had caught up to them, and she paused with her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

Her eyes darted from Cormac's annoyed expression to Hermione's pleading one, and she stood up straight with a steely spine.

"Hermione, did you forget we were supposed to meet up so you could help me with my Charms homework?"

Hermione's eyes widened before she jumped on the excuse. "Oh, yes! You were struggling with your paper on the theory behind Summoning Charms. So, sorry, Ginny. Here, you can come with me to my rooms."

Hermione held out her elbow and looked at her friend expectantly. It was a lie of course. Charms was Ginny's best subject, and she had never once needed help with it. But of course, Cormac didn't know that.

Ginny latched onto her elbow, and said casually over her shoulder as they passed him, "Oh, hello, Cormac. You know, you're missing dinner?" She asked in her falsely sweet voice that she had perfected after years of living with all of her brothers.

Both girls were long gone before they could see his scowl.

Hermione knew as they walked down the corridors in contemplative silence that Ginny had come running around that corner for a reason. And she had a feeling that that very reason was 'boy talk'.

Hermione had barely stepped through the portrait hole before Ginny was grabbing her hand and yanking her up to her own room.

"Ginny!"

Hermione screeched as she tripped over one of the steps. "Hush, you! You owe me answers, and I intend to get them!"

Hermione groaned as she got pulled into her own room and pushed onto her bed. Ginny stood in front of her with her arms crossed and a quirked brow.

"You've held out on me for quite some time, Hermione. I've allowed this mysterious little courtship between you and my brother to remain in the dark long enough." Hermione cringed at the word courtship, and Ginny just gave her an expectant look.

The thing was that Hermione, after today's events at Hogsmeade, found herself _really _wanting to talk about it.

Hermione sighed and nodded to herself. "Yes, I know."

Ginny allowed her a few seconds of silence before she nudged her with her foot and smiled, "Go on then."

"We are… well… I think we _might_ be dating," Hermione said rather unsurely.

Ginny's brow furrowed, "You _think_?"

Hermione then went on to explain the entire conversation they had had just that day in Hogsmeade where Fred refused to ask and Hermione refused to answer. Ginny was grinning by the time Hermione looked up from her folded hands.

"You're definitely dating, Hermione. That was Fred's way of asking without having to ask."

Hermione blushed and gave one more cursory glance around the room despite the fact that she had checked it before she had even begun talking earlier.

"Oh," she finally answered. After a few more minutes of Ginny needling her for information, Hermione finally admitted that she was both terrified and excited about what might happen in the future.

"Mione…" Ginny gave her a smile that softened her entire face in a way that Hermione wasn't altogether familiar with. "That's what's exciting about it, don't you think?"

* * *

Slughorn's Christmas party was in just a few days, and Hermione still didn't have a date. Her and Harry were discussing this very predicament as they walked through the library one evening. His arms were loaded with tomes she continued to pick off the shelves, but Hermione could tell from one look at his crooked glasses and wrinkled brow that his mind was somewhere completely different.

"Harry?" He jumped slightly before giving her a sheepish smile.

"Sorry, Mione. Have you been talking to me? I'm a bit distracted." Hermione paused with her hand halfway towards an Advanced Arithmancy book and took a moment to really take in her friend.

Despite the sincerity in his words, he seemed to have already begun to drift off to that same place his mind had been occupying since the start of term. Hermione had discovered the Harry this year seemed to have a two-track mind. One direction he went was Sirius and Death Eaters and Voldemort and Malfoy. This path led to broodiness and barely concealed anger and grief. She never really knew how to help him with this one besides just being there with him. The other direction was Ginny Weasley and her current relationship with Dean Thomas. This one, though just a little heartbreaking, was slightly more manageable. It led to what he was doing now. _Brooding _in a completely different way.

He was doing a well enough job pretending to be present, but any sharp eye could tell he was thinking about something (Ginny) completely separate from whatever was going on in the moment. She tried not to be frustrated, but getting closer to Ginny allowed her to have an insight into every angle of the situation. Ginny had been in love with Harry since before she met him (and then promptly fell in _actual _love with him during her first year), and he hadn't given her any kind of attention. She was completely in the right to try different avenues. Of course, Hermione was still closer to Harry, so this left her in a position that was just barely leaning towards Harry in the sympathy department.

"No, I just had a question." She looked away from him very purposely to reach up for the book, and said sympathetically, "Perhaps, we could go to Slughorn's party together? Since we can't go with the people we really want to."

Harry sucked in a harsh breath, and she slowly turned back to his face. There was a pained sort of smile for just a moment, before a cheeky grin took over his expression.

"You finally admitting it then?"

She blushed before narrowing her eyes and saying, "I don't know to _wha_t you are referring, Harry."

Harry rolled his eyes and adjusted the stack in his arms so that he could reach out and take her newest addition from her hands to add to the top. "Oh, come off it, Hermione."

She bit her bottom lip and shifted nervously on her feet. "I'll confess when you confess." When he just stared at her blankly she raised a single eyebrow and leaned in to whisper, "Even though I joke about it, I know it's hurting you to see her with Dean. It's okay, Harry. I'm not going to tell."

He blinked a few times and spoke so honestly that she was hanging on to every word. She was used to having to work a little harder to pry his feelings out of him. "I know I should be thinking about Sirius and the Prophecy or anything else more important, but I _can't _stop thinking about her." He let out a frustrated breath before pointedly looking away from her. "And I know it's selfish to hope things turn out poorly with Dean, but I have about a thousand ideas to sabotage their relationship running through my mind at this very moment." Hermione raised an amused eyebrow, and he backtracked. "I mean… of _course_, I would never _actually_ do any of them, but some of them are bloody _genius_."

She startled herself when a loud laugh popped out of her before she could stop it, and when Harry gave her a deadpan look she slapped her palm against her lips and mumbled an incoherent apology.

"Anyway… I guess I got myself into this whole mess by not realizing how funny and smart and beautiful and _bloody_ terrifying she was before it was too late."

Hermione's hand slowly fell back down to her side, and she pulled her bottom lip back between her teeth, "Well, Harry, I'd say that was a more than adequate confession."

He laughed and the tension he'd built up from releasing what she was sure he'd been thinking for a good couple of months, left his body. "So glad I passed." His mouth turned up into a smirk. "Your turn."

"I'm dating Fred Weasley," she said simply and without any hesitation this time.

"You don't say?" He said sarcastically, and she whacked him on the arm.

"Now, say you'll go to Slughorn's party with me, or I might release the entire arsenal of pranks Fred keeps sending me on _you_." He raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Merlin, Mione. How does it feel to know you have to threaten a man to get him to go on a date with you? I'm scared to ask what you threatened Fred with."

She gasped and hit him again. "Harry Potter, you take that back!" But she had to press her lips together to stop the grin from spreading across her face.

* * *

Fred was sitting down to dinner with George in their flat when a snowy white owl began tapping away on their window.

"Isn't that Harry's owl?" He asked through a mouthful of chicken.

George walked over and let the persistent thing in. Fred watched George's expression as he read the contents of what appeared to be three different pieces of parchment. It started out intrigued before it made the rapid switch to something that could only be described as mischievous excitement. Seconds later he held up what looked like two invitations.

"What are the chances we can put together a fireworks show in two days, Freddie?"

* * *

When the term ended and the day of the party dawned, Hermione found herself taking the opportunity to get all dolled up (even if it was just for Harry). She smoothed down her soft pink dress and glamoured her scar right as Ginny burst through the door. She looked amazing with her lightly curled hair and blue and black dress. Hermione sighed at just how beautiful Ginny was with such little effort.

"Sit down!"

Hermione blinked at the demand before carefully lowering herself onto the edge of her bed so that she wouldn't wrinkle the delicate fabric. She watched with wide eyes as Ginny walked toward her with a determined stup and what looked suspiciously like a makeup bag.

"Ginny, just what do you think you're doing?" Ginny set the bag down beside Hermione on the comforter and dropped her hands on her shoulders.

"Sit still, or I'll _make _you."

Hermione balked and stammered, but without further ado Ginny had pulled things from the bag and was brushing some kind of powder on Hermione's cheeks.

"Is this really necessary, Gin?"

One deadly look from her friend had her quieting and allowing Ginny to continue on her mission. It was ten minutes of being poked and prodded and listening as Ginny went on and on about how she had no idea what to get Dean for Christmas, and _oh how she wished he would wear the dark blue robes as she asked_ and _why doesn't he ever listen to me_?

She rolled her eyes multiple times and Ginny was kind enough to ignore it.

"What did you get Fred for Christmas?"

Hermione blinked in surprise when the conversation finally left the realm of one-sided.

"Oh, a book."

Ginny set down the gloss she had just finished dabbing on Hermione's lips and put her hands on her hips. "You got _Fred Weasley _a _book_?"

Hermione, quite finished with being a pliant doll, jumped to her feet and pulled the large muggle book from its spot beside her box of letters and handed it to Ginny. One of the conversations they'd had on their first not-a-date date was how Fred secretly enjoyed reading. She'd come up with the brilliant idea to find a book filled to the brim with all kinds of muggle pranks. Her mum had to go get it for her and send it in the mail seeing as Hermione was stuck at Hogwarts, but it was so perfect. She thought possibly that the only reason her mother was willing to go to such lengths for her despite the rocky way their last conversation went was because boys seemed to be the one part of Hermione's life nowadays that her mother could help her with. All her letters home were about Fred now, and that was just another reason she was so thankful about him.

She watched smugly as Ginny's grinned flipping through it before looking up with an impressive sort of look in her eye.

"I apologize. This is perfect." Hermione nodded and thanked her primly before taking it back and returning it to its place under the bed. "You know what else is perfect?" It was Ginny's turn to look smug as she pulled Hermione to a mirror and placed her right in front of it.

Hermione had to admit that Ginny had done a good job. She'd never looked so pretty in her life she thought. It was subtle, but somehow made a big difference.

"Wow," Hermione whispered.

"I know. Fred is going to lose his mind."

Hermione's head whipped towards Ginny only to see her smack her hand over her mouth and open her eyes wide like she'd surprised herself.

"Oh, shit," she mumbled through her fingers before turning toward the door.

"Fred's coming?" Hermione asked in barely concealed excitement, but Ginny was already running nimbly out of the rooms and down the stairs.

Hermione chased after her and listened with a grin as Ginny yelled down at someone in the Common Room.

"I'm so sorry, Fred! I spoiled it!" When Ginny made it to the bottom Ginny had dropped her forehead against a confused Dean's chest, but Hermione wasn't even looking at them.

Fred Weasley stood right in front of her with a bouquet of Lilacs and Carnations and a lidless box full of what looked like Sugar Quills. He looked absolutely dashing in his ridiculous magenta robes and actually brushed hair. He was grinning rather unabashadly at her, and Hermione vaguely heard Ginny moan, "_Oh_, Harry is going to murder me!"

Hermione laughed before throwing her arms around Fred's middle and surely crushing the fragile petals between them.

"Fred, I can't believe you've come!" She found herself sinking deeply into his warm arms, and taking a deep breath in.

"Couldn't let my girl go with that grabby Potter! We all know he has less than honorable intentions what with those wandering hands and all."

Hermione pulled back and hit him lightly on the arm, but she was still smiling. He set the crushed flowers and box on the arm of the chair next to him and held her at arm's length. He was smiling at her warmly as he made a point of looking her up and down.

"Well, just look at you woman! You are absolutely delectable! The loveliest specimen I have ever seen with my own two eyes!" He leaned in and whispered dramatically, "And I've seen a lot of specimen, mind you."

She crossed her arms and said with an amused raise of her eyebrows, "Have you now?"

"Yes. Quite dreadful actually. My existence that is." He sighed and pushed the back of his hand against his forehead. "Women beg for me to grant them just one look with my deep and romantic eyes, but not one has caught my fancy such as you have." He dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Now my eyes will only bless your wondrous form, my beauty."

A warm and bubbly feeling erupted in her chest, and her face was starting to hurt from how hard she was grinning. "You are _absurd_, Fred Weasley."

When he stood up again, the mischievous look was replaced with that soft intensity that she was so familiar with now. "Missed you, lovey," he said softly. His hand went to brush the side of her curls that weren't pinned back behind her ear, and he kissed her softly on her forehead. "Come along then. I've got to show off how much more beautiful my date is than everyone else's."

It was only at the mention of her being his date that she remembered who was _supposed _to accompany her. "Oh! What about Harry?" She glanced around the Common Room to see that it was completely empty, Ginny and Dean having left in the middle of Fred's dramatic monologue.

Fred grinned down at her and held out his arm. "He's asked the lovely Luna to be his date. He's actually the one that got us invited to this. Pulled some Chosen One strings with Slughorn." They slowly began the walk down to Slughorn's office.

"Us? Is George here?" Fred nodded and smiled down at her.

"He's brought Angelina." She glanced at the vibrant shade of his robes.

"Is he wearing orange?" She asked with a smirk.

"So smart, my girl."

They spent the rest of the walk in comfortable silence, and when they stepped into the office, Hermione's eyes widened in admiration. Curtains blanketed the walls in holiday shades so as to make the room look like a tent and their was a band playing against one side that must've been the Weird Sisters. Fred pulled his arm away to lace their fingers and started to pull her through the crowd as Hermione blinked up at the brilliance of the fairies in the lights.

She was still trying to figure out if a man she'd overheard being introduced as Sanguini was truly a vampire when Fred came to a stop. She slowly turned her head to see George wearing a truly atrocious set of orange robes and setting up what appeared to be one of their indoor fireworks products. Angelina beside him was in a pretty light blue dress staring at George in what could only be interpreted as adoration.

Fred crouched down beside his brother, but not before kissing her knuckles and releasing her hand. Angelina looked up at her with a soft smile.

"Hello, Hermione. Bit demonstrative aren't they?" George looked up and waved at Hermione before giving Angelina an identical kiss to her hand.

"It's because our ladies have completely bewitched us. It's both your fault really," he said with a wink directed towards Hermione.

Angelina rolled her eyes before shoving his head, so that George teetered on his toes and had to place a hand on the stone floor so as not to fall. Right as Angelina opened her mouth to speak Hermione looked down and watched as what was supposed to be a firework exploded in Fred's face Seamus Finnegan style, and left a thick film of ash all over his face. Hermione covered her mouth in amusement at seeing this particular vision come to pass, and had to resist the urge to verbalize that she'd been looking forward to that one. Instead what came out was a snort followed by an uncontrollable bout of laughter.

Fred blinked up at her once, twice, three times before one corner of his mouth turned up into a smirk that meant he had thought of a way to get back at her for her laughing at him. She was already shaking her head as he stood.

In a movement reminiscent of her first time meeting Ron, she touched her nose and said in between giggles, "You've got a bit of ash. Right there. Did you know?"

"Oh, now you've done it, woman," he said with a positively deranged smile. That coupled with the ash and explosion blown hair was too much for her.

"I think you look better like this!" She joked. She was full blown laughing by the time he had wrapped his arms around her waist to trap her and was hunching in on himself to nuzzle against one of her pink cheeks.

"Fred!" She squeaked, but he just continued to rub off on her face until he pulled away with half the ash gone from his face.

"There," he said smugly. "Now we match."

Of course, that was the moment that Slughorn made his way over to her. He did a doubletake on her face, and Hermione had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing again. Hermione didn't think she'd been in this good of a mood in a long time.

"Why… Miss Granger! What on earth has happened to your face?" His eyes darted to Fred, and he stuttered even more, "Well, Mister Weasley! Perhaps you two should get cleaned up before I start introducing you to my guests!"

"We will, Professor Slughorn. Right away."

He nodded before tapping her shoulder lightly and going back into the crowd, his large belly parting the crowd like Moses. As soon as he was gone Hermione started laughing again and turned back to Fred with a mock glare. It wasn't very good of course, considering how every couple of seconds another bubble of laughter would make its way up her throat.

"Now _you've _done it, Fred Weasley!"

She couldn't continue to stay mad at him when he was staring at her the way he was though, and her laughs soon turned into nervous giggles.

* * *

Fred thought there might just not be anything in the entire world as beautiful as Hermione laughing. Even covered in ash by his own hand, she was a gem. He'd spent his whole life trying to make as many people laugh as he could, so he'd heard and seen hundreds of laughing faces. There was no competition in his mind now, hers was the _best_.

Someone held a handkerchief out to him, and he turned very shortly to see Harry's amused expression before turning back to a nervous Hermione.

"Fred?" She sounded confused more than anything, and Fred supposed it must have been because he hadn't said a word and couldn't stop _staring _at her.

In a moment of surprisingly serious tenderness, he held her hair back with one hand and began to gently wipe the dark powder off her face.

He ignored George's one-sided speech about how he was glad he was the responsible twin and decided to bring back-ups, and instead stared at his girl as she blinked up at him. Merlin, he loved her eyes. Had someone slipped him a love potion?

"I've heard many laughs, Hermione, but yours is by far the best," he whispered to give them some kind of semblance of privacy, and he watched as the handkerchief slowly revealed her increasingly rosy cheeks and small smattering of freckles. He poked the soft apple of her cheek with his pointer finger and added, "I also love how I can make you blush." Her cheeks were _violent _red by now, but she was giving him a soft sort of nervous smile.

"I don't like how you can make me blush," she whispered back, but she was still smiling. "Rather embarrassing actually." She took the handkerchief from him then and started on his face. When she had trouble maintaining her balance in her short sparkly heels, Fred crouched down so that their faces were closer to even.

Neither of them noticed when George let out a whoop of victory and explosive colors were filling the tent-like room. Her small hand landed on his hip, and she squeezed seemingly without thinking. His mind took him down a path that had _him _blushing. It certainly didn't help that she was leaning against him, and if he chanced a glance down, he had a clear view down her lovely pink dress.

She gave a swipe to his cheek, and he watched as her nervous smile turned into a grin.

"Apparently, I can make you blush too, Fred." He grinned at her, and let both his hands land on her petite waist.

"Well, of course you can. I blush when I think about you all the time." His thumb brushed a soft path across her ribs, and she looked up at him with an expression that was surprisingly coy. It was so out of character on her face, but boy was it working. His mind was now going _full speed _down the aforementioned path.

"Oi! Lovebirds! You missed the show!"

Hermione slowly pulled away from him, and Fred turned to George with a proud smile. His brother was smirking at him, and it was only then that he took note of the ethereal Luna. She was standing with her hands laced gently in front of her, and staring with her wide knowing eyes at Fred and Hermione.

"It's just as I said. A lovely couple."

Fred pulled Hermione against his side and said happily, "Thanks, Luna." He took in her tiered silvery dress and grinned. "You look nice tonight."

She smiled at his kindness before saying in her airy voice, "Thank you very much, Fred. You have an infestation of nargles just about here," her hand reached up and brushed the shell of her ear, and Hermione let out an amused laugh. "You and George look very beautiful in those robes. Don't you think, Hermione?"

Fred blinked at being called beautiful, but he supposed there were much worse things to be called. "Oh yes, Luna. He is quite beautiful," Hermione said behind her demurely placed hand.

"What about me, Granger? I thought we agreed that I am the much more handsome twin!" George stood to his full height, and Angelina patted his chest in consolation.

"It's okay, love. You can't win them all," Angelina said loftily. George reached for her ribs and began to tickle her, and before anyone knew it, they were chasing each other through the crowd to the sound of their own laughter.

Moments later Slughorn appeared beside them again.

"Oh, very good, Miss Granger. You are back to your normal self. Now come along. I have some guests I would like you to meet." The man blinked in surprise when Hermione grabbed onto Fred's hand and began to pull him along with them. "Oh, Mister Weasley are you coming along? Fantastic display, truly! I guess I could introduce you as well."

Fred enjoyed an hour of talking Hermione up to strangers and watching the frustrated blush spread further and further across her cheekbones.

She'd finally had enough when Fred said to Gethsemane Prickle, "My Hermione is quite taken with beings of all sort. Did you know, when she was just thirteen she brewed polyjuice and turned herself into a-"

Hermione discreetly lifted her foot and stabbed the pointy end of her shoe into one of his toes, and he couldn't repress the groan that came from the back of his throat before leaning heavily on her. She fisted the fabric of his robes at his elbow and began to back away from the concerned woman.

"So sorry to leave it at that, Madame Prickle. Fred hasn't been feeling too well, so if you'll just excuse us?"

"Oh, yes, of course, Miss Granger. I do hope you'll feel better, Mr. Weasley."

Fred managed a strained, "Thank you, Ma'am. I'll be sure to finish that story for you another time!"

"You will _not_!" Hermione hissed out of the corner of her mouth before shoving him through a parting in the curtains until they were both hidden from everyone else in the party. "Just _what _do you think you're doing?"

Fred hopped around for a second as feeling slowly returned to his toe before looking at Hermione in confusion. "Why are you upset?" Fred blinked as he watched her angrily push her hair away. She looked rather enchanting when she was essentially foaming at the mouth with rage, but there was no chance he'd be saying _that _to her right now. Especially when the next words left her pretty mouth.

"You've _humiliated _me!"

Now he was angry, and he really _hated _being angry. "Sorry, I'm proud of you, Hermione! Didn't know that was a crime!" She ignored him and bit into her thumb nail anxiously.

"How did you even know that story? I swore Harry and Ron to secrecy!"

He blinked. "_That's _what you're mad about? Brewing Polyjuice in second year is bloody impressive! And the cat thing is funny!"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him and said hotly, "This isn't a _joke_, Fred Weasley! Besides that isn't all that it's about!"

Somehow, Hermione had found his one insecurity when it came to her and whacked it over the head most violently with a Giant-worthy club. "That's all you think I'm capable of, right? All you think I am?" He was practically spitting his words.

She blinked at him and the anger was now accompanied confusion. She stepped forward before shaking her head, "No, that's not-"

But he interrupted her, "I'm just one big _bloody_ joke!"

He may not be as hot-tempered as Ron, but it was still in his Weasley blood. Even as she reached for him and started denying it, he pushed her hands away quickly.

"Not serious enough for the great, Hermione Granger, am I?" His voice had quieted, but you could still here how upset he was. "I'm just a prankster who works in a joke shop and never finished school. Well, enjoy climbing your greasy ladder, Hermione, because I clearly won't be any help!"

Hermione took a step away from him and the anger that had been there disappeared. Now she just looked upset and even worse, disappointed.

"You _know _I don't feel that way, Fred." Her eyes left his and landed somewhere on the ground. He remembered for a moment how much he was enjoying her laughter earlier. "It's insulting that you'd ever think such a thing." The dejection in her voice was so much worse than her anger, and he realized then that maybe she was just as insecure about her bookishness as he was about his lack thereof. "If you don't mind, I'm going to call it a night."

Then she was gone and Fred was left staring at the empty place she'd been.

* * *

Hermione managed to slip out of the room right as Harry was walking back in. She came to a surprised stop, and said weakly, "Oh, hello, Harry. Going back in?"

He looked over his shoulder once before turning back to her. His green eyes were filled with suspicion, but then he seemed to study her and it was replaced with concern. "Everything alright, Hermione? You look upset. Where's Fred?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes and said, "Not with me!"

Then she pushed past him and started her angry trek back to Gryffindor Tower, missing completely Harry's look of surprise.

* * *

Fred had taken a few minutes to walk out of the curtains again and when he finally did, he searched the room to find that Hermione was already gone. The door to the office swung open, and Harry stepped through.

"Oh, bollocks," Fred muttered when Harry's eyes landed on him, and he started making his way through the throng of people.

For a minute they just stood there staring at each other before Harry said in a quiet voice laden with implications, "She likes hot chocolate when she's upset."

Then he was across the room before he could blink talking to Luna.

Choosing to follow Harry's cryptic instructions, Fred took off to the kitchens before essentially running all the way up to Gryffindor tower as well as he could manage without spilling the contents of the warm mug. He tapped the stones at the bottom of the girl's stairs before taking the steps two at a time to the sixth year girl's dorms.

Hermione had mentioned in the letter that Lavender and Parvati were leaving for holidays the morning of the party, so he didn't even bother being quiet as he stepped into the room. The curtains on her bed weren't pulled shut, so he could just see the outline of her form ensconced in the moonlight.

When the door creaked shut behind him he heard her mumble, "Not now, Ginny."

Fred took a deep breath before taking the few steps toward her bed and seating himself on the edge of it. Her back was to him, and her face was buried in her pillows. He could see the crushed petals from the flowers he'd given her along with the sugar quills on the table beside her bed. Despite the fact that they were so obviously done for, she'd placed the flowers in a pretty crystal vase.

"Did you have a good night, Gin?"

He looked back down at her and ran a knuckle gently along her spine.

"I'm sure she did, but I hope she didn't have _too _good of a night, mind you," he said softly. His joke fell flat and silence met his ears.

He listened as she sucked in a breath before turning over so that she was facing him. After a moment where they just stared at each other, they both started speaking at the same time.

"I'm sorry," they both said.

Fred grinned at her, and she gave him a timid smile.

"You don't embarrass me, Fred. I'm _proud _to be with you," she said quietly. He held the mug out to her before taking off his outer robes and shoes. When he climbed beside her on the bed, she had sat up and was smiling into the mountain of whipped cream he'd asked Winky to put on top.

He leaned into her and whispered, "I don't want you to think I'm all jokes." He wrapped an arm around her and started playing with the ends of her big curls. "In fact, I take you pretty seriously."

She dropped her cheek to his shoulder. "I never wanted you to think I feel that way. I _don't_."

Fred sighed. "I know. I just got angry."

She pulled away from him to set the hot chocolate beside her bed and burrowed back into her covers. "Are you staying tonight?"

He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows, "Hermione, I hate to break it to you, but I'm not that kind of guy."

She blushed and punched him lightly in the ribs. "Hush, you, or I'll kick you out!"

He saluted before throwing his body down on the mattress next to her and pulling the comforter over both of them. He settled down so that their cheeks were on the same pillow facing each other. He reached out and ran a finger down her freckled nose. She'd removed the make-up, but she still looked positively enchanting.

"This is the part where you tell me a bedtime story," he whispered.

She rolled her eyes before scooting forward so that their foreheads were resting against each other. "How about a goodnight kiss instead?"

He smiled softly. "That'll do."

* * *

**AN: Thanks as always for the follows, favorites, and reviews!**

**I really take every review to heart, so plz let me know what you thought:)**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: WOW I am the worst. I made you guys wait **_**months**_**. Sorry about that! I hope everyone is staying healthy, financially stable, and at home in these troubling times. **

**I'm getting back into the swing of things after a crazy few months. I'll be updating more regularly now. **

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything**

* * *

**Chapter Five: Calla Lily**

Hermione woke up to the feeling of feather light touches moving over her collarbones as she lay on her back. One of her legs was pinned to the bed under the weight of one of Fred's and her arms were splayed out at odd angles. She was pulled back violently into consciousness when soft lips ghosted across her bare shoulder blade and tickled her. Her arm shot out with a gasp and her palm landed flat against his chest with a mighty shove.

"Oi!" Fred groaned as her eyes flew open, and she shot up with a squeak.

"Fred!" She blinked down at him, and watched through sleep-bleary eyes as he rubbed his hand against where she'd hit him. He looked up at her and grinned mischievously.

"What'd I do to earn such violence at this hour, princess?"

She blushed and pressed her fingers to her lips before mumbling, "Goodness, Fred. I'm sorry." After a moment, she seemed to overcome her guilt and slapped his shoulder lightly with a scowl. "And don't call me princess."

Fred's grin grew, and he wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her back down beside him on her bed. He rolled and before Hermione could even blink, she was pinned beneath him, and he was leaving smacking and dramatic kisses all over her face.

"I sincerely apologize, your majesty!" He said theatrically without slowing down his assault at all.

Hermione started laughing and in between loud breaths managed to yell, "Fred! Not that either!"

His fingers snuck up her sides and began tickling her ribs. "My apologies, Brainy My-nee!"

All she could manage that time was, "Horrid!"

Suddenly, he ceased all fire and pushed his palm against her ribs. His fingers were spread wide, and without all of the distracting kisses and tickling, she could feel the warmth from his hands seeping into her skin. His thumbs brushed against the bottom side of her breast sas her chest heaved after her bout of laughter. The thin fabric of the camisole she'd worn to bed did absolutely nothing to block out his touch. She found herself blinking up at him as his grin diluted to a soft smile.

He moved one of his hands to her cheek and whispered, "How could I forget that you prefer Sleeping Beauty?"

She rolled her eyes, but she knew it must have looked half-hearted because the corner of his mouth twitched upward, and he started leaning down. Before he could kiss her, Hermione reached up and covered the bottom half of his face to halt his movement.

"Frederick Gideon Weasley! Do you remember what I told you about my parents?" She raised an eyebrow, and he mirrored her action. Her heart seemed to skip a beat at the mention of her parents, but she swallowed down that mass of soul-crushing feelings for the moment.

"Dennises?" He asked cheekily.

"Den-_tists_! Tooth Healers!" When he continued to raise just one eyebrow, she huffed. "Oral hygiene is very important to me, and I will _not_ kiss you until we've properly brushed our teeth."

He rolled his eyes but humored her by rolling off of her.

Once she was sitting up, and Fred was sitting on the edge of her bed to lace his shoes, she took a deep breath and leaned forward so her cheek was resting against his shoulder blade. He paused, and she used his deep breaths to calm herself.

"Fred?" She asked shakily.

"Yeah?"

She snaked her hand around his ribs and released a sigh when he immediately laced her fingers with his. She stared at the drapes surrounding her bed and tried to gather her thoughts. What was it her mother had always told her as a kid? Something about secrets being _poison_ to a relationship. Her eyes darted to the books on her bedside table that had been charmed to look like arithmancy texts. Her eyes watered, but her resolve was unshakable. Maybe holding him like this so she wouldn't have to look at his reaction made things easier, or maybe she was being a coward, but she needed someone to talk to. She needed to talk to _Fred_.

"Mione?"

She twitched slightly, and she felt his fingers tighten around hers.

"What's going on? You can talk to me."

She pushed her cheek even harder against his shoulder and said quietly, "I know." She took a deep breath. "I have a plan, Fred, and I'm not going to change my mind about it. I don't need your permission or approval, and I know you might think I'm _crazy_… but I'm doing it."

"Okay…" He drew the word out slowly, and she started talking again before he could.

"In the first war, Muggleborns and their families were targeted. They were tortured and killed, and there was nothing any of the families could do about it because they were muggles." She squeezed her eyes shut and whispered, "_My_ parents are muggles, and _Harry Potter_ is my best friend."

Fred suddenly shifted, and Hermione had to push herself onto the balls of her feet. He turned to face her and stared at her from underneath his bangs with a masked expression. His voice was low and probing when he asked, "What's your plan?"

She swallowed the lump building in her throat and squared her shoulder. "I've been speaking to Dumbledore. There are no safe houses for muggles, so I started researching. My parents would never willingly leave England, and well… they don't know about the war. _If _I told them, they'd take me with them. Take me from the Wizarding World completely… Next summer, I'm going to obliviate them, and plant an idea in their brain to leave Britain. They've always talked about how they want to retire to Australia, so that's where I'm going to send them. They'll be happy there."

She paused in her rant and watched as Fred sucked in a harsh breath and pushed his hair from his eyes. She watched as his eyes seemed to dart to every edge, wrinkle, and freckle on her face before finally landing on her eyes. His true emotions were veiled from her, and her body tensed like she was preparing for battle. "Does Dumbledore know what your plan is?" Hermione blinked in confusion.

"Aren't you going to try and talk me out of this?"

His eyebrows drew inward. "Do you want me to?"

Hermione immediately shook her head, and reached for his hand. "No… I just… no."

He sat up, and looked down at her through narrowed eyes. "But you expected it?"

"Well, I just thought…"

"It's fine, Hermione." He sighed and leaned down so that his eyes were even with hers. "I'm not mad."

"You're not?" He gave her a disbelieving look.

"A little offended maybe." He leaned forward and mindful of their conversation earlier, placed a lingering kiss on the corner of her mouth. He pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. "Does Dumbledore know?"

"I never had to say anything, but he knows," she whispered.

"I'll be there." She pulled back and studied his expression, and upon seeing her own determination reflected in his blue eyes, she threw herself at him.

"Thank you," she breathed.

His arms wrapped around her, and she allowed his warmth to comfort her. Everything that had been weighing on her seeped out of her like some kind of virus run off by the heat. Thoughts of Luna's words from months ago hit her like a freight train. _A gift_. Fred was her gift from magic. Magic that was about to take her parents away. She was a complete mess of contradicting thoughts, but Fred Weasley felt like _home_, and she wasn't going to let that feeling slip through her fingers.

She pulled back and smiled softly at him.

"Tomorrow is Friday. I know you wanted to go on that date, but I was kind of thinking that you could come over instead. I don't really want to waste any time with them, but I don't want to waste any time with _you _either. Will you come to dinner? Meet them?"

He grinned cheekily at her, and her lips twitched upwards. "I'm gonna charm the pants off your mum, Hermione."

She shoved his shoulder and snorted. "Shut it, Fred. That's disgusting," she mumbled.

"Now go brush your teeth, so I can snog you silly!"

Hermione jumped to her feet and looked over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow. "I am a lot of things, Fred Weasley, but _never_ silly."

* * *

"No offense, Mate, but is that _really_ what you're planning on wearing to meet Hermione's parents?" Fred looked up from the sink and stared at George's reflection in the mirror.

"What'd ya mean, Georgie?"

His twin raised a single eyebrow and said with a humored grin, "I imagine her parents are more of the pragmatic, sensible type." George made a point of letting his eyes travel from the soles of Fred's black dragonhide boots, up his dark green, pinstriped trousers, to the magenta and lavender dotted waistcoat, and finishing at the bright orange button down shirt stitched together with thick shimmering silver thread. "Did you get dressed with your eyes closed? Not a bit of you matches. Let's see your socks then."

Fred, rather reluctantly, bunched the fabric at his thighs so that George could catch a glimpse of the socks sticking out a couple inches up from his boots. George couldn't suppress the grin if he tried when he noticed one sock covered in exploding fireworks and another with tiny snitches.

"As I thought. You've gone completely around the bend!" George let out an amused chuckle before his gaze landed on his brother's rapidly paling face. "Alright there, Fred?" He asked. Suddenly very concerned for the well-being of his brother. "Did you knock over a Color Blind Cannister or something? Accidentally hit yourself with a Confondus? Maybe tested one of our Mental Meltdown Mints?"

George's eyes widened at Fred's panicked expression and watched as he frantically wiped his hands on his trousers and quite literally _ran_ back to his room. George followed at a slow, wary pace and propped himself on the edge of Fred's bed frame. His brother was now throwing various shirts and pants over his shoulders, and George's theory about the Mental Meltdown Mint was confirmed if his behavior was anything to go by. Either that, or his brother was having an _actual _meltdown all of his own accord.

"Oh, bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!"

"Freddie…" he coaxed gently.

Fred's entire body tensed before he slowly turned towards George and began to anxiously tug on the ends of his hair. After a few tense seconds of silence, Fred threw his hands in the air and finally looked at him.

"I'm going to muck this all up, Georgie!" George chose not to point out his outrageously shrill tone and was _very _careful to mask his surprise.

It was such an uncharastically clear display of Fred's anxiety, and to be honest, the sight unnerved him. George had always been the more anxious of the two when it came down to it. Anyone who knew them would say that anxiety was uncharted territory for them, but it just _wasn't _true. They were human after all. They had just gotten very good at covering up all those nasty, unwanted feelings in the presence of others. He had never seen Fred this anxious though, and out of everything he could possibly be anxious about, it was over meeting ickle Hermione Granger's parents. George would find the time to be amused about this later, he was sure.

"Well, in _that _outfit, yeah, I imagine you will." A flash of anger appeared in his brother's eyes, and George's hands shot up in surrender. "_But…_" George tapped his chin a few times and studied his brother's _truly _absurd outfit before holding his finger up as if he had an idea. "... we can fix this."

George waved his wand and non-verbally summoned a different shirt and waistcoat. George was almost completely sure Fred was using Sirius's high-class sense of style from last year as a frame of reference, so he picked the things he thought might give him that slick, posh air he seemed to be going for. He tossed the articles of clothing at his brother and watched as he changed quickly into the simple black button down and subtly shimmering silver waistcoat.

"Ah, much better," George said with a smug smile. "You'll knock their sensible socks off, Freddie." His tone was teasing, but when Fred looked up at him, he made sure to show his sincerity. Fred sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"I don't know what's wrong with me." He arranged his Hyena cufflinks that had been a gift from Ginny for their birthday (George suspected she'd adopted their habit of placing winning bets to afford them each a pair) and tugged his sleeves down to their right place. "I'm so bloody nervous."

"Oi! Enough of this, Fred! Hermione cares about you. That's what really matters right?"

Fred nodded to himself for a moment. "Right." He nodded again and smiled softly to himself. "Right then." He picked up the pocket watch on his dresser and cursed under his breath as he tucked it in the pocket of his waistcoat. He grabbed the already shrunken down presents and a bouquet of flowers he'd carefully placed preservation charms on earlier that morning and gave George a smarmy grin that hid all of his nerves. He pulled on a dark grey muggle coat that came to about mid-thigh and said with what George assumed was an insincerely cheerful tone, "Gotta run! Don't wait up!"

Then he was gone with a pop of apparition.

George shook his head as he made his way to the kitchen. "He's screwed," he sang to himself.

* * *

Fred landed at the park about a block down from the corner of Heathgate and Meadway where Hermione's home sat on the corner. He appeared behind a few trees and glanced about at the empty park before starting the very short walk down to her house. It was snowing pretty heavily, so Fred muttered a warming charm and studied Hermione's house through the flurry as it came closer and closer. He'd only ever been inside her home before, so seeing it from the outside was something of an experience. It was completely ordinary looking from the outside, and he suspected that in the summer, the Granger's managed their lawn and gardens in the same pristine way they'd seemed to have managed the interior. When he made it to the front walk and was staring the door down like the muggle barrel of a gun, he realized that the Granger's couldn't possibly be any more different than his own rambunctious family. He wondered vaguely what Hermione's parents would think if they ever visited the Burrow, but that line of thinking made him frown because then he remembered that they might not possibly _ever _remember they even had a daughter anytime in the future, let alone that Fred Weasley existed.

Fred still hadn't quite gotten over the sting of Hermione being so prepared to fight him on her own decision to Obliviate her parents next summer. Fred understood her fearful and careful planning because even he had been dreaming up terrible and paranoid ideas to protect his own family, and they weren't even bloody muggles. No. Fred would never fight her over protecting her family at all costs, and he supposed that being best friends with his overbearing and, quite frankly, _idiotic _little brother was going to lead her to a lot of misconceptions about him. He hoped it would be less frustrating next time.

Fred cursed himself when he shook himself from his thoughts and checked his pocket watch again. He'd been standing there for nearly five minutes, and his plan to arrive exactly ten minutes early to impress his constantly on top of things girlfriend (and hopefully her parents) was shot. Now he had to be a still _slightly _honorable five minutes early rather than the _truly _impressive ten.

"Bollocks," he muttered and straightened his spine to take the last few steps and knock on the door before he got lost in his nerves and ended up being simply _on time_ which was completely unacceptable if it was Hermione Granger he was trying to impress.

Right as he forced himself to take a deep breath, the door was yanked open and standing there was the very witch that was the cause of all of his issues. Not that he was complaining.

She looked absolutely lovely in a deep green silk dress with long sleeves and a modest v-neckline. It cinched right at her tiny waist with a strip of matching fabric, and floated down to just a couple inches above her knees. His lips twitched up when his gaze landed on her soft baby blue painted toenails and bare feet.

He grinned when he looked up at her face and saw her shyly tucking one of her loose curls behind her ear. "Fred, you're right on time!"

His grin grew at that, and he barely had time to hold his arms out before she was nestled against his chest like she hadn't seen him just yesterday.

"Hermione, let our guest in. It's cold!" A man's voice called from somewhere further in the house.

She stepped away from him with a roll of her eyes and reached for his elbow to pull him into the house behind her. When the door was shut, Fred pulled the bouquet out that he'd been hiding behind his back and offered them to her with a bow.

"Mademoiselle Granger. For you."

He waited until she took them before glancing up at her with a smile and plucking a single soft white Calla Lily from her bouquet by the stem. When he was holding it in front of him, she got this odd, glazed over look that she got occasionally ever since the Department of Mysteries, and he tilted his head to the side in contemplation. The look always mildly unsettled him. He watched as the glaze in her eyes slowly faded and a light blush bloomed on her cheeks. When she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth to chew on it in a moment of anxiety, he found himself reaching across the distance between them to pull it out of captivity with the soft pad of his thumb.

"Sorry, Fred. I just got a weird sense of deja vu," she said softly.

Fred frowned slightly and asked, "Deja vu?"

She nodded once. "The sensation that you have experienced an exact situation before. A rather confusing illusion actually…"

"Does it happen to you often?"

She frowned heavily at him and whispered in a tone that made him think she wasn't telling him everything, "More than I'm comfortable with."

Choosing to ignore the implications rather than pry, he took a slow step toward her until their toes were just a scant couple inches apart and tucked the flower gently behind her ear after breaking off the majority of the long stem.

"You look lovely, Hermione," he managed after a moment of studying her entire appearance. She really did paint a lovely picture, and Fred still couldn't quite believe he was in a relationship with her.

Before she could say anything, someone rounded the corner to the entrance way, and Fred took a step back. The woman that stepped out of what must be the kitchen looked remarkably like Hermione, and Fred found himself actually observing her more closely than he'd gotten a chance to when they'd met so briefly in the summer. She had the same facial structure and height, but the main thing separating them was the woman's completely tame hair. It was straight with half of it pinned back and much more blonde than Hermione's.

She gave him a big, welcoming smile and said not unkindly, "If you wouldn't mind taking your shoes off, Fred darling, we don't wear shoes in the house."

Fred noticed Hermione's small eye-roll in front of him and made a point of smiling warmly at her mum. "Yes, of course." He pulled his coat off as well as his boots.

It wasn't until his shoes were placed neatly on the mat by the door and his coat hung on the rack, that Fred realized he hadn't changed his socks after George had picked his outfit. He looked up right as Hermione snorted and delicately placed her hand over her lips.

His defense of his honor was brought to a halt when Hermione's mum stepped forward and brought him into a crushing hug not too dissimilar from one of his own mum's.

She pulled back with that same bright smile and whispered conspiratorially, "I just _knew _she fancied you all those months ago!"

Fred grinned and whispered back, "She's rather hopeless actually. I was beating her off of me for _months _before I finally gave in to her rather devious siren's call."

Hermione gasped indignantly from a couple feet away and practically growled, "Fred!"

Dr. Granger started laughing then before latching onto his elbow and pulled him in the direction she'd originally come from.

For Hermione's benefit he added, "Kidding of course. Everyone knows it's me that's hopeless."

It must've been the right thing to say because both Granger girls gave him nearly identical soft, adoring smiles. He basked in the warm atmosphere of acceptance for approximately fourteen seconds before he was standing toe to toe with a man giving the perfect impression of a disapproving father. It took him an additional couple of seconds to realize it _wasn't _in fact an impression, but it was _actually _Hermione's seemingly disapproving father.

_Bollocks_.

Fred straightened his spine and held his hand out with a slightly hesitant smile.

"Hello, Dr. Granger. Pleasure to formally meet you," he found he was rather proud of himself for his voice only cracking once. "I'm a big fan of your work."

"My work?" He asked gruffly, and Fred doubted his idea to start this introduction with a joke.

"Your daughter… primarily."

Fred was maybe a couple inches taller than him, and he noticed absently that Hermione had, in fact, inherited her unruly curls from her father. After a long suffering minute of Fred's hand hovering uncertainly in the air and none of the present company daring to take a single breath, Dr. Granger finally reached out and gripped his hand rather harshly in his own. After he dropped his hand, his entire expression shifted and he was grinning at Fred with an expression eerily similar to Hermione's after she'd just achieved a hard-earned victory.

"Please, Fred. Call me Daniel," he said with a seriously amused tone.

Fred had to resist the urge to gape at the man as he held out a muggle beer for him and led him to the dining room table through an archway directly off the kitchen. Fred had to say he was genuinely surprised by the easy flow of conversation after that.

It wasn't until dessert was finished, and Fred had finished off his fifth muggle beer at the continued insistence of Hermione's father that the conversation took a turn.

"So next July, I was thinking we'd take a nice trip because it's the summer before your last year. I think an extended holiday with the three of us sounds lovely. Maybe a month," Jean said while staring intently at Hermione.

All night she'd been in such a deceivingly pleasant mood that Fred had blocked out the memory of his first time ever meeting her. For the first time, he heard just a hint of the anger he'd overheard in the summer. She was challenging Hermione, and based on the startled way his girl dropped her spoon, Hermione had realized it too. When Fred glanced up to her warm eyes he noticed just how haunted they looked. He wished for a moment that he could tell the Grangers just how much Hermione was sacrificing. How they'd raised someone brave and strong and _so _wonderful. All of the gentle warmth he'd been feeling earlier vanished, as he subtly stretched his arm to the right under the table and let his large hand envelop her knee in what he hoped brought her at least a small semblance of comfort.

Hermione looked over at him with her big, horribly sad eyes before her expression shuttered, and she turned to give her mom and dad a tight smile.

"I don't know, Mum, but it sounds nice," she whispered.

Fred's eyes flicked between Daniel and Jean, and he watched when Hermione's father seemed to collapse downward with a tired breath right as Jean straightened and narrowed her eyes.

"Hermione," Jean said through clenched teeth, "You _are _planning on coming home this summer, right?"

Hermione's hands dropped to her lap, and he felt his entire body tense when her lithe fingers wrapped around his on her thigh. She was squeezing so tightly it hurt, but he didn't consider pulling away even for a moment.

"Jean, dear, perhaps we should table this discussion for later," Daniel said to her with a hushed voice. His hand landed on his wife's shoulder, and she reached over and pushed it away with a huff.

"No, Daniel! I'm tired of _tabling_ this discussion for later!" Daniel looked at Fred and gave a sad, little smile, and Fred found himself in the uncomfortable position of sympathizing with everyone at the table. Then Jean dealt a blow that Fred knew would be ringing in Hermione's ears for years to come. "We don't even know who you are anymore, Hermione! It's like you're not even our daughter! You're just some stranger who lives in our home when you have nowhere else to go!"

Hermione sucked in a harsh breath and jumped to her feet. She took a couple faltering steps backwards, knocking the chair she'd been sitting in straight to the ground.

Her face was deceivingly calm when she finally spoke. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I had no intention of ever hurting you guys like this."

Then she turned and walked briskly from the room. Fred was frozen in shock until he heard the slam of the front door, and he turned to look at the two people across the table.

He stood slowly and said absent-mindedly, "Thanks for having me," before running after Hermione. He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his coat in a rush, and before he knew it, he was running down the snow covered street to Hermione's quickly moving form. When he finally got to her, he wrapped his jacket tightly around her shaking shoulders and pulled her into his embrace. He glanced around and said shortly, "Hold on."

He apparated her into the living room of his flat not a moment too soon because she broke down as soon as they landed. Fred barely registered George's shocked expression from his spot on the couch behind her before she collapsed to her knees on the ground in a shaking mess. Fred briefly shook his head at his brother before dropping right in front of her.

She wasn't crying, but she was breathing in such a way that Fred thought she might be having a panic attack. He gently took her face in his hands and said quickly, "Hey, _breathe_, Hermione." He took one of her hands and placed it on his calmly rising and falling chest, "Feel that? Breathe with me, okay?" After a moment, he looked up at a still shocked George. "Will you get one of our calming draughts, Georgie?" He looked back down at Hermione's tightly shut eyes and added, "Maybe some tea too?"

George jumped to his feet and immediately took off down the hallway.

"They… they hate me, Fred," she whispered.

He brushed his thumb across her cheek and she collapsed in on herself until the top of her head was pushing against his chest next to their hands. "No, Hermione. They _love _you. That's the only reason they are so upset," he said strongly. George emerged from the hall with the draught and paused only for a moment to hold Fred's shoulder reassuringly before disappearing into the kitchen. Fred moved his hand to below her chin and gently pulled her up. Her breathing had slowed to something manageable, so Fred quickly uncorked the vial.

"Think you can take this for me?" He smiled when she jerked her head in something resembling a nod. "Good girl," he whispered.

She downed it with a grimace before her breathing finally returned to completely normal. Once the draught fully took effect, she flushed in what Fred assumed was embarrassment.

"Oh no. None of that," he said with a shake of his head. "If you'd seen the panic attack I had before coming over, you wouldn't be embarrassed at all."

"It's true. It was rather appalling," George said as he rushed back into the room with a steaming cup of tea. He crouched down next to them and winked at Hermione, "You would've realized you picked the wrong twin after you'd seen what he was wearing before I helped him."

Hermione reached her shivering hands out and slowly took the cup from his twin's hands.

George leaned forward and whispered with a put upon smug smile, "It's not too late to run away with me, Granger."

Her lips twitched and both Fred and George's faces broke out into satisfied grins.

"There she is!" Fred said happily. He jumped to his feet before reaching down to help her up. "Now, we really should be getting you into some warm clothes." It was then that he realized she'd run out of the house in such a hurry that she hadn't even put on shoes, and his grin faded. "Maybe a nice warm bath is due."

Fred put his hand on the small of her back to lead her quickly to the bathroom in the hallway, and once she was settled on the lid of the toilet and his tub was slowly filling, he rushed to his room for some clothes for her. He would find it in himself later to be happy about her soft smile and blush when he set one of his sweaters with a large 'F' and a clean pair of boxer shorts on the counter.

"I'll be just outside. Give a shout if you need anything."

Before he could leave the room, her hand reached out and latched on the sleeve of his shirt. When he paused and looked back at her, he found the image she made rather fetching in spite of the circumstances.

He wanted to sear this image of her wrapped up in his coat, holding George's favorite tea-cup (that he never let Fred touch), curls all over the place (flower still in place miraculously), and looking up at him with the most adoring and thankful look burning in her gaze. He would do anything to make sure that look never left.

"Thank you, Fred." He leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead softly. "Can I stay tonight?" She asked nervously.

He pulled back and studied the vulnerability that had filtered into her expression. "Of course, you can, Hermione."

He pulled her up by the lapels of his own jacket and pressed his lips against her in a kiss that could really only properly be described as tender. Merlin, he'd gone soft.

"But tomorrow we're going to wake up, eat George's famous blueberry pancakes, and then go back to your parent's home. You're going to make it right because if you don't, you're going to regret it for the rest of your life."

Hermione nodded her head immediately, and her nose brushed against his a few times. "You'll come?"

Fred kissed her again and stood to shut off the taps after seeing that the tub was filled. "Of course I will. George will even come if you want."

Fred couldn't hide his grin when she nodded immediately and said, "I'd like that."

"Good. Now shout if you need anything."

When he made it to the living room, George was pacing in front of the fireplace. Fred collapsed on the sofa and seconds later, George was sitting on the coffee table directly in front of him with his arms crossed over his knees.

"What happened, Freddie?"

Fred felt the strength he'd been maintaining for Hermione's sake waver just slightly in the face of his twin. He took a long moment to think about how to answer that question before finally sighing and dropping his face into his hands.

"I never really thought about how hard it must be for Muggleborns' parents to have a magical kid until Hermione." He paused and lifted his eyes, "Her parents don't know about the war, George. Not at all. They don't know about Voldemort, or the Chamber of Secrets, or the Tri-Wizard tournament, Merlin, they don't even know that she almost _died_." Fred glanced down the hall before he whispered, "She's scared that if she doesn't get them out, Voldemort will have them killed. _Tortured._ But she thinks they would never go willingly."

George's expression was very solemn when he asked quietly, "What do _you _think, Fred?"

Fred didn't even hesitate when he responded, "I think that Hermione Granger is _very _rarely wrong."

George nodded in agreement, "I suspected as much."

Fred for the first time in almost nineteen years, hesitated before revealing something to his twin. It wasn't his secret to tell, but he couldn't keep this from him. "She's going to obliviate them when term ends. She'll remove herself completely from their memory and plant the idea to leave the country in their minds."

"You can't reverse memory charms like that," George muttered in shock.

Fred ignored him and kept going, "Her parents, of course, have no idea, and they're just mad she doesn't spend more of her breaks at home." Fred dropped his face to his hands again with an exhausted sigh. "You should've heard what her mum said to her tonight, George. It was bloody _awful_ considering what she is planning to do."

It was like the universe was playing some kind of cruel trick on her. When those words had left her mum's mouth, he was half convinced they'd somehow figured out Hermione's plan.

Fred was pulled from his thoughts when his brother's hands dropped on his shoulders, and he leaned down to look in his eyes, "It's a good thing she's got you then, huh?"

"Not just me. You too, Georgie."

George smirked, "Well, of course."

One side of Fred's lips twitched up. "No, I mean I kind of told her you'd come with us tomorrow when she goes home to make things right."

George pulled away and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What's in it for me?" Fred observed his brother, and knew with utmost certainty that George would never for a second actually say no to going. The thought made him smile.

"Famous blueberry pancakes?"

George shook his head, "Fred, I'm going to ignore the fact that you just offered up _me _making breakfast in return for a favor I'm doing for _you_, but only because I like your witch so much more than you."

Fred's retort was cut off by the sound of a door opening down the hall and shuffling footsteps. In just moments, Hermione was standing in front of them in a sweater so big, it dropped to just a few inches above her knees. George moved to the armchair next to the couch, and Fred opened his arms. He grinned when she didn't even hesitate to climb onto his lap despite George being in the room, and when she pulled her feet up on the couch beside them, he found that she had at some point gone and gotten the two socks that completed the mismatched pair he was wearing.

She was perfect.

"So George… what's this I hear about you liking me more than Fred?"

Well, pretty close to perfect.

* * *

**AN: Big thank you to everyone who is sticking with my stories despite my long absence. I appreciate you more than you know!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Six: His Hands**

Fred sat on the armchair in the Granger family room watching nervously as his brother sat next to Hermione's father asking about the ins and outs of whatever sport was playing on the odd telly-vision thing Daniel had briefly explained to them. He could hear just the barest hints of a hushed conversation between Hermione and her mother from the kitchen, and he found himself wishing for extendable ears now more than he ever had before. This was truly saying something considering the fact that they still weren't officially inducted into the Order. He imagined a lot of Hermione's capabilities in regards to accepting what she was going to do to her parents this next summer was going to ride on how their interactions go over in the next few days, and Fred really hoped her parents would accept whatever explanation Hermione fed them without too much complaint because she _needed _this to go over well. For her own sanity as well as his because as the days passed, he began to have this equally warm and terrifying feeling that whatever came for them in this war, Hermione and himself were inexplicably tied to the other.

This feeling scared him more than he liked to admit.

Everyday that passed seemed to turn his fancy into an aching need that he'd never felt before, and he really needed to have a blatant conversation with the witch before their next lengthy amount of time apart otherwise he might go completely barmy. He was almost positive he was in love with her which was another feeling that was scaring him shitless.

He'd expected Hermione's parents to be completely unwelcoming when the three of them had shown up on their doorstep that morning, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that they were more relieved than anything that they hadn't completely driven her away. Only her father had made one grumbling comment about the fact that his teenage daughter had clearly stayed the night at the flat Hermione had admitted that George and Fred shared, but it was quickly dismissed when Hermione hissed about her being of age in the Wizarding World and George placated that nothing untoward had happened under his hawkish supervision.

A lie of course.

Fred would never forget the way she'd climbed on top of him as soon as they were alone in his room and put up a wandless silencing charm. They hadn't had sex, _no_, he wishes, but there had been a lot more than just a simple snog. The fact of the matter was that Hermione Granger's hands were _magic_, and George _definitely_ hadn't been supervising.

Fred was pulled from his... _untoward _thoughts when Daniel Granger leaned toward his armchair and said loudly, "So… my Hermione says you two are running a pretty successful business."

Fred briefly wondered if Daniel was some form of muggle legilimens or if he was simply trying to drown out the slightly louder voices streaming from the kitchen. Both prospects were unpleasant.

"Yeah, we've got a shop in Diagon Alley," Fred managed.

"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes is the name," George added.

"Pranks and mischief are the game," Fred finished with slightly less fanfare than he typically managed.

Fred let out a sigh of relief when Daniel seemed amused by both their twin speak and apparent choice in merchandise.

"And it's doing well?" He asked carefully.

"Smashingly," George said with a grin.

Fred opened his mouth to say something about how he supposed the looming war actually appeared to be helping business, but he caught himself and said instead, "Everyone's always in need of a laugh. Even if they don't quite know it."

Daniel nodded sagely. "Yes, I do agree with that sentiment. Hermione especially. Don't know how I managed to raise such a straight-laced, serious girl." He turned his head from one twin to the other, "She seems rather taken with your products. She even said, 'Nothing short of genius, dad.' Never thought I'd hear my daughter call pranks genius, but somehow you two have managed it."

Fred and George both beamed at the compliment and George insisted, "Hearing that Hermione said that is a compliment of the highest order. Brightest Witch of Her Age they call her. Did ya know that?"

By the way Daniel's eyes widened at the confession Fred would guess that he hadn't. Although it didn't really surprise him too much that Hermione hadn't bragged about the title gifted to her by Remus Lupin years ago. She'd told him the story one night the summer after the triwizard tournament when he'd asked how it had started, and he still remembered how she'd blushed modestly the entire retelling.

"She never said," Daniel declared. He then sat up proudly and gave a little smile, "The Brightest Witch. _Our_ Hermione."

Fred grinned with pride, "It's true of course. She's top of her class and just about as brilliant as they come."

Daniel looked at him out of the corner of his eyes and said quietly, "I still remember how nervous she was after she got her letter. She hated the idea that she was so behind seeing as she had just learned that magic was real. Going into her first year, she felt she had a lot to prove because of all the other students who'd known about it all their lives. Eleven years old and worrying about prejudices. I don't know how right she was about that, but it's nice to know she's proving them wrong."

Fred and George both nodded and shared a look that didn't go unnoticed by the sharp man. He sighed and leaned forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees.

"I know there's more going on than she'll say. I caught a glimpse of some awful scarring, right here, last summer." At this he gestured to the top of his collar bones where Fred knew the curse mark from Dolohov started. He paled and sat up straighter under Daniel's watchful eyes. "Yeah whatever happened was pretty bad I imagine," the man continued. "It was an awful reddish, purple thing that I've never seen the likes of before, and she was _so _tired, all the time. She also has some scar on her hand. It's writing by the looks of it, but I never got close enough to see it. She did a good job of hiding it, mind you, but a father _knows._"

Fred felt sick at the idea of having to explain how a blood quill had been used to scar her hand with the words, _I will respect my betters. _A byproduct of living under Umbridge's regime for a year. Fred had his own handwriting carved into his hand as well, and he hoped Daniel didn't notice how he tucked his hands between his thighs and the sides of the armchair to hide the evidence. He suspected he did anyway if his heavy frown and directed gaze was anything to go by.

For the first time, Fred found himself thinking that he wished Hermione hadn't kept this all from her parents. If only so he could reassure her parents that their daughter was strong and had a lot of people that would've taken that curse for her if they'd been there, but he couldn't say anything that let onto the fact that Daniel was correct in assuming something was happening. Hermione would never forgive him.

"You'll take care of her?" Her father pleaded when both brothers didn't say anything. He looked between him and George again who were having a silent conversation with their eyes. "The both of you?"

Fred nodded his head immediately, "I'd do anything, sir," he whispered with no waver in his voice.

George reached out and gripped Daniel's shoulder, "The both of us would."

Both Fred and George respectfully ignored the tears that welled up in the man's eyes and looked away to allow him to wipe at his face with his sleeve.

Fred leaned forward and said in a hushed voice, "Your daughter has every Weasley wrapped around her finger as it stands."

Daniel grinned then, and Fred felt the pressure of the conversation ease as cheers erupted loudly from the telly-vision.

"Believe it or not, her mother was the same way when we were young. Endeared everyone to her. No one dared to say no, let alone wanted to," he said with a besotted smile that Fred had no doubt meant that that included him.

When the girls came out of the kitchen with tear-streaked faces, but arms wrapped around each other, Fred found the rest of the weight he'd been carrying on his shoulders slipping away. Even more so when they spent the rest of the morning joking and laughing together before Fred and George had to inevitably return to the shop.

* * *

Fred found himself sitting alongside Charlie and Bill in the kitchen after the draining day involving Percy, Rufus Scrimgeour, and the ever-angry Harry. It was now nearing midnight as the three of them sat with Fire-whiskey filled tumblers and tried to ignore the events that had transpired. Their mum had tried to put on a brave face and make the day merry for all their sakes, but it was clear to everyone that the pain of losing Percy to the Ministry was weighing on her. Fred was exhausted from a day of actually doing everything she asked and working double time with George to brighten everyone's mood. It had appeared successful, but Fred could tell that everyone else was putting on a show for Molly just like they were. Happy Christmas indeed.

Fred lifted the glass to his lips and took a deep sip, relishing in the burn after the emotional upheaval he'd faced in the last week.

"Fleur and I are getting married."

Fred's nerves already felt like they were on the surface of his skin, so Bill's voice breaking the already somber silence felt like a personal hailstorm. It took him longer than it typically would to process his brother's declaration, and when it finally did, he nearly choked on his own tongue.

"That's wonderful, Bill!"

He'd thought he'd intoned all the right feelings into his congratulations, but he realized when Bill glared at him and Charlie snorted, that he really hadn't done that great. He winced at his own blunder and took another heaving sip.

"Yeah… sorry. That was bad," he groaned.

None of the Weasley's were necessarily huge fans of the lovely Fleur Isabelle Delacour, but there was no hiding the stupid amount of adoration that filled both his brother and his apparent fiance's eyes when they looked at each other. _Definitely _not a passing fancy. When he'd brought it up to Hermione towards the end of the summer when Fleur had been staying with them, she'd said something along the lines of it being incredibly illogical and saddening to begrudge someone of happiness in these times. Fred managed a genuine smile at that memory and directed it at Bill who was now grumbling into his now empty glass.

"Bill, I actually am happy for you, Mate," Fred reassured.

Charlie nodded his acquiescence and added in his typical gruff tone, "Can't believe you scored a veela. Although, you always did have to have the best of everything, brother."

It took a severe amount of patience and just a touch of thick-skin to understand Charlie's particular brand of humor. Fred always found he enjoyed it. He especially liked how he could rile Hermione up until she was bright red, hissing, and actually stomping her feet like one of Charlie's dragons. Either that or a particularly volatile kitten considering her stature.

Fred's smile grew when Bill shoved Charlie, and the heavily muscled dragon tamer barely moved an inch.

"So, when's the wedding?" Charlie asked after a few seconds of the three of them giggling like school girls.

"This summer is the plan, but we'll see what happens," Bill said with a shrug that seemed a little too forced to actually be nonchalant.

Fred and Charlie shared a look, and Charlie reached for the bottle to refill all their glasses. After a few moments where Bill whinged about all the details that Fleur had been pestering him with in regards to their upcoming nuptials, Charlie and Bill both turned their heads towards Fred with identical mischievous expressions to rival him and George.

"So how's our little Hermione," Bill started.

"Or should we say… _your _little Hermione," Charlie added with a smirk that spoke of disgusting implications.

"Follow up question," Bill said with a raised finger.

"I haven't even answered the first," Fred complained, but he still, of course, found himself thoroughly amused.

"Is Ron aware of whatever _is _happening with little Hermione?" Bill completely ignored him with a glance at the ceiling like he could actually see where Ron was sleeping and faked a horrific shudder.

"Yes, and if he _isn't _aware, how exactly are you planning on breaking that particular bit of news to him about you and little Hermione?"

Fred held his hands up with a grin. "Who says anything is going on with Hermione?" He asked. After a moment he added, "And stop calling her little." He tried with a relatively innocent expression. Totally unconvincing when you know who Fred actually is.

Bill just shook his head. "Multiple sources, you dog. _Multiple _sources."

Charlie snorted, "And she _is_ little."

Fred leaned back in his chair and tried to keep the stupid grin off his face, but he really couldn't do it. "He's not totally aware, but I'm sure he suspects. Plus, he's got the lovely Lav-lav showering him with attention, so I'm not sure what you're implying."

Charlie snorted for the umpteenth time. "Oh, I'm pretty sure you know full well what we're implying."

"Remember how he lost it with Krum? Nearly destroyed their friendship because he was such a prat about it."

"_And _how about how he reacted to you hanging around her when she was recovering from that curse?"

"Or how about how he reacted just this morning when Ginny asked you how Hermione was doing?"

Fred frowned heavily at all the instances where Ron acted like a jealous git.

"I'm sure he'll know soon enough. It's not like we're trying very hard to hide anything." Fred took another swig and absently registered that he'd just finished his fourth glass of the night. "Either way, Hermione isn't worried about it." He shrugged and tried to not let his brothers' words unsettle him.

"Well, _I _think it's great," Charlie added after a few moments where all of them reminisced about different times Ron's horrid temper had exploded in their presence.

"Me too," Fred whispered as his smile slowly came back.

"Just so you're aware-"

"Merlin, I'm really starting to hate the word aware," he groused.

"Just so you're _aware…" _Bill continued with a small smile before it faded into the same concerned frown they all seemed to wear when talking about the war… "Dumbledore is not letting anyone owls from them out of Hogwarts this term. Letters from Harry, Hermione, and Ron in particular."

Fred slammed his glass against the table with widened eyes. "What do you mean? Why?"

Charlie eyed his hand warily before looking back up with a sympathetic grimace, "Said it in the Order meeting. He's going to tell them as soon as they're all back. He's worried all their owls are getting intercepted."

Fred dropped his face in his hands and moaned, "Hermione is _not_ going to be happy with that."

"Hermione or you, Freddie?" Bill was back to that teasing grin, but there was still that hint of something else there.

Fred would never admit to the two older brothers that he'd always idolized that he was pretty sure he would handle it a lot worse than her. On top of that, he was getting frustrated with the way the Order was dragging their feet with initiating him and George.

"I have to tell her before she goes back," he whispered.

"You can't do that, Fred," insisted Charlie.

He narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"

"Mum's already pissed about you risking going to visit her last Friday. She's not letting you out of her sight."

He threw his hands up. "Fine. I'll owl her."

Bill was shaking his head, but Charlie reached out and gripped his shoulder. "Send it tomorrow, Fred. Mum and Dad aren't going to let you owl anyone soon."

In a moment of frustration, Fred jumped to his feet. "How exactly are they planning on stopping me, huh? I can always send it with one of our delivery owls at the shop!"

Bill's lips thinned. "Fred, it's not safe. They're looking for weaknesses to exploit. Just… I mean… think about _Hermione_."

There was no question about who _they _was supposed to be in that sentence, and Fred deflated. He sat back down and dropped his chin.

"I _am_ thinking about her," he defended weakly.

Charlie reached out and grabbed his shoulder again. "Just send it to her tomorrow, Fred. You'll see her again this summer."

Fred rubbed his hand down his face and suddenly realized that his goodbye under the watchful eyes of her parents was anything but good enough.

* * *

Hermione stepped through the floo into the Headmaster's office at the end of New Year's Day. Her heart felt a little like it was breaking when she smiled thankfully at Dumbledore and allowed him to escort her to the entrance to the Gryffindor common room with idle chatter about the holidays. She was sure he'd snuck in a life lesson somewhere in there about the importance of family and love or some such nonsense, but for the first time in nearly six years she found herself not hanging onto his every word. There was a small part of her that would always be bitter about Dumbledore's kind delivery over how he couldn't do anything to protect her parents. She didn't particularly _want _to take it a certain way, but there was that dark part of her (the part that had punched Draco Malfoy or cursed Marietta Edgecombe or even led Umbridge into a volatile herd of Centaurs) that wanted to accuse him of not wanting to help her because she wasn't Harry Potter. Or because her parents were _muggles._ That small part metastasized when Dumbledore reached toward her as she was stepping through the portrait hole and held out a scroll.

"You'll give this to Harry, won't you dear?" His voice was as sweet as the candies he liberally handed out, and she hated herself for how much she wanted to lash out and be petty enough to tell him to deliver his own bloody mail.

Instead she gave him an indulgent smile. "Of course, sir. Happy to."

She snatched the scroll from his blackened fingers.

"Hope you had lovely holidays," she hissed quickly.

She shut the portrait behind her tightly before collapsing on the sofa in the empty common room. When the heat of the fire reached her, she wrapped her arms even tighter around herself and dug her fingers into the soft knit fabric of Fred's sweater that she'd conveniently 'forgotten' to return to him. She reached down for the trunk that she'd levitated in after her and pulled out the thick envelope that had been delivered to her a few days ago. She'd wanted to read it desperately over the last few days, but every time she'd pulled it out, her mother or father would appear or she'd been too tired to dedicate the amount of attention to it that she'd wanted to.

Now, alone in the common room, she set Harry's scroll to the side and peeled the envelope open with reverent attention, carefully setting the envelope to the side. She smiled at the sight of Fred's familiar scrawl.

_Dearest Hermione, _

_This is about the hundredth piece of parchment I have tried to write this letter on, and I'm not the least bit embarrassed to admit that. I don't know how to word what I need to say to you in a way that makes it sound any better than it is, so I will settle for saying it simply and without the flowery language that I know you secretly adore. _

_Charlie and Bill told me that Dumbledore plans on cutting off all owls to or from you three. They tried to talk me out of sending this one, but I knew I had to. I was rightfully furious at first, but then Charlie and Bill explained how it was for a good reason. I'm sure you can figure out what those reasons are, love. You were always the bright one. I've probably already said too much, but I find myself unrepentant of it. _

_It probably isn't a good idea for you to reply to this, love (although, I won't protest if you do). I just hope you know that this is not something I am happy about. Here is a list of all of the compliments I was planning on slipping in the middle of my letters (very smoothly, I dare say) to tide you over until the next time I get to say these to your lovely face. _

_You are even more beautiful than Helen of Troy, a woman worth starting wars over. _

_(I admit that one might possibly be insensitive, all things considered, but I stand by it.)_

_If I had a sickle for every time I thought of you, I would be wealthier than Draco Malfoy's left arsecheek. _

_(Specifically the left. The right one is piss poor while the left flourishes in decadence. Don't ask how I know this. Also please don't check out Draco Malfoy's arse.)_

_If you were any brighter, you would be the sun._

_(I have to admit, that one is awfully cheesy and kind of embarrassing. If you don't like it, it was George's idea. If you do, then it was mine.) _

_I have never in my life, seen something sexier than you beating my baby brother in a duel without breaking a sweat. _

_(Prime wank material there.)_

_Except maybe when you walked into our living room wearing my sweater. That was also an image I will never forget._

_(I know you stole my sweater. I'm not mad. Actually I think it might just look a bit better on you than me, but just a bit.) _

_In all seriousness, Hermione, I already miss you, and these next few months without your constant correspondence might drive me to madness. I know if I don't end this letter now, I never will. Stay safe. Don't let that wretched Potter boy drag you into anything too reckless, or I will never kiss you again. _

_Okay, that's a blatant lie. I refuse to even pretend it isn't. _

_Truly, Sincerely, Irrevocably, and Absolutely Yours, _

_George Fabian Weasley_

_(just teasing, it's Fred)_

By the time Hermione was done reading the letter her fists were clenched so tightly around it, that the paper crinkled. She immediately loosened her grip and gasped as she tried desperately to smooth the wrinkles that had formed before carefully setting the letter aside and standing to pace the carpet.

"They're _just_ letters," she hissed to herself under her breath. "I'm fine. _Just _letters!"

Her mind started racing with all the things she'd wished she'd done in hindsight. If she'd known about this, she would've thought up another form of communication. Something like the galleons she'd made for DA or some other way to deliver notes. Her hands fisted in her hair, and she cursed the past few nights when she'd fallen asleep rather than staying up to read and respond to him.

She could've responded if she'd read it sooner. She could've told Fred she was falling in love with him.

Hermione immediately stopped her pacing at her last surprising confession and dropped her hands to her red cheeks.

"Oh, bollocks," she whispered.

A startling thought surfaced in her mind from the murky, dark depths of her subconscious.

"I need to speak to Luna."

The words spoken out loud made her feel and sound even more loony than she suspected she already looked, but the girl was starting to become a frustratingly comforting sounding board for Hermione's confusing love life. _Love _life.

Hermione winced before snatching the letter up again to torture herself with Fred's words for what she suspected wouldn't be the last time that night.

* * *

It took a few weeks for Hermione to finally track Luna down and hold her attention for longer than stilted greetings, and she discovered that the dreamy Ravenclaw was a lot more clever than anyone gave her credit for. _Obviously,_ she was clever, of course. She didn't get sorted into Ravenclaw just for kicks.

After Luna displayed compulsion and manipulation skills that Hermione wasn't aware the sprite-like blonde had, Hermione found herself halfway up a tree just inside the Forbidden Forest with Luna's Spectrespecs perched on the end of her cold nose.

"What am I looking for again, Luna?" Hermione asked with a huff. Her arms and legs were wrapped around the thick branch and her cheek was pressed against the rough bark. Her view of the bundle of beautyberries Luna had coerced (and that was a kind term) Hermione into observing for her was filtered by the pink hue of the lenses. The glasses were swirling in a way that reminded her of that nauseating scene in _Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory_ where Gene Wilder really loses his marbles. That combined with the heights had Hermione none too pleased with the situation, but Luna was the only person who knew the full extent of her relationship with Fred so this was pretty much her only option.

"You're looking for Nargles. They love beautyberries," Luna sang up to her from her spot sprawled in the snow.

"And why couldn't _you_ look for them?" Hermione's voice was shaky as she reached out and pulled the bundle closer to her.

"Because I don't have your sight, Hermione." Luna said this like it was the clearest fact in the world. Hermione suspected she was talking less about the Nargles and more about the whole situation with Fred and fate and all that nonsense.

Making a decision with the understanding that she couldn't stand to be up in this tree for one more moment, Hermione used her wand to snip the bundle and placed the limb carefully between her teeth before shimmying down the tree as carefully as she could manage.

Once her bum was safely seated in the snow at the base of the tree, she released her death grip on the bark and collapsed backward with her limbs spread in opposite directions and the berries still hanging from her mouth. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, deciding for the moment to ignore the way the snow was soaking into the fabric of her cloak. There was the sound of rustling before someone grabbed her hand and pulled her up with surprising strength. Her eyes flew open, and she watched as a swirling Luna plucked the beautyberries from her mouth and looked at it for barely a second before tossing it over her shoulder.

"No Nargles. Pity," she hummed. "Come on, Hermione. Enough dawdling. We're missing dinner."

Hermione's mouth dropped open, and she barely had time to push the sickeningly pink Spectrespecs up into her bushy hair before Luna was once again using her seemingly brute strength to tug Hermione in the direction of the castle.

"Luna, I actually have a question for you," Hermione managed to huff out in between the deep breaths she was taking to keep pace with her.

Luna hummed noncommittally as a response, so Hermione soldiered on. As she opened her mouth to speak, she realized that she didn't even have any real questions to ask. She supposed she just needed to voice her feelings to someone who wouldn't judge her for all her 'girly' feelings and who also wasn't related to the boy, no, _man_ in question.

"I think I'm falling in love with Fred, but I'm not sure," she managed to say, and she definitely wasn't proud of the way her voice cracked on the word love.

"Of course you are."

Hermione dug her feet into the stone steps in between Hagrid's hut and the Entrance Hall, and she gave Luna a glare that hardly phased the witch.

"What do you mean by that?" She demanded.

Hermione watched as Luna reached up and brushed through the ends of her curls in a way that Hermione would've considered patronizing from any other person.

"I simply mean that you and Fred are fated. It only makes sense that you would fall in love with him." Luna separated three strands and deftly braided them between her nimble fingers before dropping it and letting it be swallowed back into her nest of curls. "I suspect Fred is thinking the same thing as you just about now."

Hermione didn't know what exactly had happened in the past few months to make Luna's thoughts hold so much weight, but for some reason, she felt more at ease than she'd felt since she thought that treacherous thought in the common room after her friend's soft words.

When Luna and Hermione stepped into the Great Hall together a few minutes later, Hermione was much too distracted to notice the way people gawked at the image she was making. It wasn't until she was seated and Neville reached across the table to pull a twig from her hair that she realized she was still partially wet from the snow and had the Spectrespecs resting on top of her head.

"Have fun with Luna?" Harry's teasing voice did the trick in pulling her completely from her reverie, and she turned in her seat to stare at her friend. Harry surprisingly didn't grow as uncomfortable as he typically would under her inspection and simply raised an amused eyebrow. He seemed lighter than he had since they'd returned to the castle, and Hermione felt herself sag in relief. Harry had been a dark entity for months now, and she suddenly realized she should spend less time thinking about Fred and love and more thinking about her friend. When she did speak to him lately, it was all about that dreaded Potions text.

"Harry, I've been a shite friend recently," she mumbled and dropped her gaze to her lap. She missed the way his eyes widened when the swear word left her mouth.

Harry reached out and began pulling more and more leaves and twigs from her hair in silence. "Your hair is like bloody Devil's Snare," he whispered distractedly.

"I've been so focused on my own problems, that I've not been paying you any attention. I'm _terrible. _Truly," she added.

"You really aren't. _Shite _on the Hermione Granger scale is still infinitely better than most people's full throttle," he teased. Hermione's head snapped up, and she grinned at Harry.

"Did you just admit to appreciating me outside of needing me to help with your homework?" She gave him a disapproving stare that Minerva McGonagall would've been proud of, but she ruined it when she couldn't hold back the twitching of her lips.

He rolled his eyes and turned back to his meal, "I did no such thing," he mumbled. Hermione was still staring at him when he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. "What were you and Luna doing?"

Hermione sighed and gestured to the glasses on top of her head. "Looking for Nargles, _obviously_." She paused, ignoring Harry's choked laughter, and added in a slightly quieter voice, "And talking about Fred."

Harry nodded and in a very Harry way, refused to pry.

"I think it's time I tell Ron," she whispered.

His eyes widened and they both darted glances down the table where their ginger friend was ignoring a simpering Lav-lav in favor of shoveling food into his mouth.

Both of them grimaced.

"You sure?" Harry asked incredulously. "Must be serious then?"

Hermione pursed her lips and finally turned to start putting food on her own plate. "I suppose it's always been serious."

* * *

Hermione had been putting off speaking to Ron and consequently threw herself into nagging Harry about his pilfered Potion's text, nagging Harry about his suspicions regarding Malfoy and Snape, nagging Harry about talking to Slughorn, and finally nagging Harry about Ginny. Really all she did nowadays was nag Harry.

She'd put it off so long that before she knew it, it was Ron's birthday. Hermione had been having a relatively pleasant afternoon, but it had been _suspiciously_ quiet. It wasn't until Professor McGonnagal appeared in the common room to collect her, Ginny, and Lavender that Hermione realized that her suspicions had proven true. She and Ginny didn't even find it in themselves to giggle together over McGonnagal's obvious hesitation before urging Lavender to come with them as well.

Before she knew it, they were standing in the hospital wing and being told that Ron had been poisoned.

Hermione was shifting nervously at the end of the bed with Harry watching Lavender sob over Ron's prone form in the most appalling of manners when suddenly someone was pulling on her hand. She was wrenched from her observations of the simpering girl in her natural habitat and suddenly she was staring into the amused eyes of Fred.

She gasped at the sight of him and immediately yanked him towards her.

"Fred!" She said needlessly into his chest. She could hear Ginny snickering behind her, but she ignored it. "He's going to be fine," she whispered.

Fred's hands made their way from her lower back and up until one was holding the back of her head in place and the other was wrapped so tightly around her that the edges of his fingertips were touching his own ribs.

"Missed you," he leaned down to whisper into her hair. She shivered at the feeling of his lips brushing against the shell of her ear.

They pulled away from each other when the truly inhuman sound of Lavender shrieking erupted through the room, "He's waking up!"

Hermione kept her hands on the front of Fred's robes as they all watched in silence when Ron thrashed for a moment and groaned.

None of them could make out the words he was mumbling under his breath until he let out one word that sounded more like a moan.

"Mione…"

Hermione blanched, and Fred's arm tensed and tightened around her waist. She didn't even have time to react fully before Lavender was looking at her with a very painful, accusatory glare and pushing her way through the mingled crowd of Weasley's and Professors to run out of the hospital wing.

When the door slammed behind her, everyone in the room turned to stare at the wide eyed Hermione before inevitably observing how intertwined she was with Fred.

Hermione instinctually leaned closer to him when no one averted their eyes, and her relief was almost tangible when Fred relaxed into her.

It was Mrs. Weasley who eventually broke the silence with a squeaky, "And how long has this been going on?"

Ginny and Harry both snorted. "Since this past summer, Mum."

Hermione's eyes darted from Mrs. Weasley's shocked face, to Ginny and Harry's smug grins, to a still passed out Ron, to Mr. Weasley's twitching smile, and finally landed on George's entirely too mischievous grin. She didn't even bother looking past them to all the staff that was gathered in the room observing the drama unfolding.

"She's dating them both, Mum. Didn't you know?" George mock-whispered, and Hermione pulled away from Fred just long enough to give George a firm slap as close to the back of his head as she could manage with her stature.

"Shut it, George!"

He snickered and Mrs. Weasley's disbelieving stare turned to a soft, if hesitant, smile. "Well, that's wonderful," she managed before her eyes returned to her seemingly still unconscious son. "Oh dear…" she whispered. "This is not good."

* * *

By the time Ron woke up his family had left for the evening, and it was only Hermione and Harry at his bedside. Hermione's goodbye with Fred had consisted of a very brief snog behind a tapestry and whispered words about how the next couple of months will pass by so fast it'll feel like the blink of an eye. It had not been nearly satisfying enough, and Hermione thought it just made her wish for letters all the more.

Hermione was pulled from her thoughts when Ron moaned and blinked his eyes open slowly.

"Blimey, my head hurts," he groaned.

When his eyes finally focused, he glanced from Hermione to Harry before his brow furrowed.

"Where's Lavender?"

Hermione sighed in obvious relief and rubbed her temples. "Ron, we need to talk," she blurted.

Harry hastily got to his feet and gave Ron a few pats on his arm. "Well, I'll leave you to it and grab us some food. Glad to see you're awake, Ron."

Once Harry had scampered off like the coward he was, Ron pushed himself up into a sitting position and eyed Hermione warily.

She frowned and nervously started the conversation with, "Happy birthday, Ronald."

He scowled and shook his head, "You Ronalded me… must be serious."

She looked down and fiddled with her fingers before looking back up at him with a steely resolve. "I'm afraid Lavender is quite cross with you right now because you-"

Ron groaned so loudly, it cut off the rest of her words. "Bloody hell! I swear that woman is _always_ cross with me."

"Yes well, you said my name in your sleep, and I daresay she now thinks we've been going behind her back," she hissed.

Ron blushed bright red and tilted his head to the side in genuine confusion. "That's bloody ridiculous! I probably was having a nightmare about you nagging at me to do my homework!"

Hermione's mouth fell open to respond with proper indignance, but she just about swallowed her own tongue at his next words.

"Plus, I _told _her you're dating Fred!"

Hermione watched with wide eyes as Ron realized what he'd said and turned to look at her with an annoyed expression.

"What're you looking like that for?" He snapped.

"You… How did you…" Her mouth was opening and closing like a fish, and Ron rolled his eyes.

"I'm not stupid, Mione. You wear his bloody jumper every night." Hermione flushed bright red as he continued talking. "And I overheard him talking to Bill and Charlie on Christmas. You guys aren't exactly being secretive, you know?"

Hermione shook herself to ward off her own disbelief and started fidgeting nervously, "Are you mad?" She whispered.

She watched as Ron seemed to think over what he was going to say instead of just blurting whatever came to mind. Something she had seen from her friend very rarely. When he looked up at her, he was giving her a small crooked smile.

"I was at first. I couldn't believe that Fred had come in and stolen _my _girl." He gave a short self-deprecating laugh that he usually reserved for when he was complaining to her about Harry. "Then after a few days, I realized that you weren't _my_ girl. I kind of bollocksed that up, didn't I?"

Hermione couldn't respond because she was holding her breath tightly in her lungs.

"Yeah, you don't have to answer. I know I did." He shook his head, and his crooked smile came back. "I _really _like Lavender. I wasn't planning on liking her. At first, I just let it happen because I wanted to make you jealous, but then I realized that I actually _fancied_ the barmy witch."

Hermione snorted and shook her head half-heartedly. "That's awful, Ronald!"

His grin widened. "Just don't tell _her_ that."

When Harry came back ten minutes later with a couple trays full of food, he grinned at the sight of Hermione and Ron laughing together in a way that they hadn't done in what felt like years.

* * *

Fred and George were rushing through the castle at full blown sprint. They'd gotten a Patronus not too long ago and immediately apparated to the Hogwarts gates. When Fred landed and saw the Dark Mark above the castle it was like the fear he'd felt when they'd learned about the Department of Mysteries all over again. They'd had to push through the throngs of students rushing about in a panic, but one thing became abundantly clear if the manic shouts were anything to go by.

_Dumbledore_ was _dead_.

There had been Death Eaters in the castle, and Albus _fucking _Dumbledore was _dead_.

Fred felt a well of bitterness bubbling up inside him over arriving just after the fight _again_. The sprint to the hospital wing was becoming too familiar to him, and when they stepped through it was to Fleur screeching at their mum and a bed-ridden and mauled Bill.

His father spotted them breathing heavily in the doorway, and he walked over to them with a heavy sigh.

"Is Bill okay?" George immediately asked.

"He's going to be fine. Greyback got him, but he's going to be fine," his dad whispered solemnly.

"And Dumbledore?"

His father shook his head and looked toward the ground before looking back up at them. Fred couldn't believe the fear he spotted hidden carefully in his dad's irises.

"Snape killed him." Fred paled and shook just slightly in disbelief. Snape had always been a sodding bastard, but to kill Dumbledore? A man who had defended him to the Order time and time again?

"That slimy git," George growled.

Fred shook his head rapidly, "Bet he let the Death Eaters in too."

Arthur shook his head again, and this time he just looked sad, "That honor belongs to Draco Malfoy."

"Fuck," Fred hissed.

"Is anyone else hurt?" asked George.

"Ron, Ginny, and Hermione are a bit shaken up. Harry is…" His words tapered off, and Fred followed his gaze to the end of the wing where Harry was hunched over himself facing the wall. "He was there in the Astronomy Tower when Snape killed him," Arthur whispered.

Fred watched as a teary Hermione stood in front of Harry and brushed his unruly hair away from his face. She seemed to be speaking rapidly at Harry, and he could see even from where he was standing that her clothes were distinctly dishevelled, and she had what looked like a bruise forming on her cheek. Ron was standing beside her looking equally dishevelled and nodding along with whatever she was saying. He hated himself for immediately checking to make sure they were an appropriate distance apart, and then he sighed when he realized there were a few inches between them. Him and Hermione had so many conversations that needed to be had, but those could wait for later. He silently observed as Remus moved away from an angry looking Tonks and made his way over to Harry. Hermione gave their old professor a hug before stepping away with Ron to give the werewolf and Harry some privacy.

Fred and George had settled themselves in some chairs surrounding Bill's bed when Hermione finally spotted him.

* * *

Hermione walked away from Harry with a sick but determined feeling in her stomach. The death of Dumbledore felt like the final straw for her, and now she knew without a doubt that what she had planned for her parents was the right thing to do.

She glanced over at Bill's bed solemnly, but her eyes lit up when she noticed one red-head in particular sitting back in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs. He was staring directly at her, and she felt herself finally breathe after the taxing night. She walked toward him as fast as she could without running, and he automatically held his arms out for her.

She paused haltingly just inches from his hands and watched with glazed eyes as his long and strong fingers trembled in the air between them. Seconds later they jerked slightly just as they had in her dreams, and she sucked in a harsh breath. His hands. Just like the dream. She looked up at him finally with tears in her eyes and allowed him to turn her away from him and tug until she was nestled safely in his arms. His arms tightened around her middle, and she suppressed the groan of pain at him nudging a sore spot near her ribs because she knew if he knew she was hurt, she'd be taken away from him. Being held in his arms like this was the first time she'd felt safe all night. She shuffled back in his lap until her spine was flush against his chest and her temple was pressed into his cheek.

He turned his lips toward her ear and whispered, "Are you alright?" He followed his question with a soft kiss to her unbruised cheek.

"I'm fine," she managed after a few moments. His thumb burned a track across her t-shirt covered ribs, and she sighed, melting into him.

"I missed you," he mumbled into her hair.

She brought one of her hands to cover his before pulling the right one up to her mouth to press kisses to his knuckles. She wanted to say it then. Say that she was pretty sure she loved him, but she also knew that she didn't want an audience when she finally did say it. She wanted it to be just the two of him, and she wanted to tell him all the reasons why and all the things she wished for in their future. Right now just wasn't right.

She turned her face toward him until her nose nuzzled against his.

"I missed you," she murmured before pressing a decidingly chaste, _too chaste_, kiss to his lips and turning back around.

She melted into his arms, and noticed that Mrs. Weasley, who had become subdued following Fleur's chastising, was smiling at them with what looked to Hermione like approval shining in her eyes.

"Mum approves," Fred agreed with her silent observation. She could feel his smile against her cheek, and she couldn't help but smile too.

"You know who else approves?" She asked quietly.

"Who?" She could hear the curiosity in his voice.

"_Ron_."

Hermione felt Fred's head turn slowly to the right, and he watched as his little brother stood with Lavender holding on to her hands tenderly. They were having their own whispered conversation, and Fred and Hermione both found themselves astounded that Lavender could speak on a level that wasn't her usual screeching.

"Gross," Fred mumbled and fake shuddered beneath her, but Hermione could hear the relief and amusement clear as day in his voice.

When Ginny and Harry stepped up to the group holding hands, Hermione sighed at the peace she felt. For just this moment, despite the night they'd all had, everything seemed right.

* * *

**AN: **_**Very **_**long chapter. Took me a while to write the passing of time in a way that I was okay with. I know the Burrow gets attacked in the movies, but I decided to stick with what happens in the books. Hope you enjoyed this addition. Seeing as sixth year has ended, things are about to get pretty rough! Expect an update very soon! Thanks for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Seven: Her Trunk**

Hermione and Ron stood on the bridge leading towards the Hogwarts gates watching the huge gathering of people filter out of the castle that had been there for Dumbledore's funeral. She had held in her emotions for the entirety of the service, and now as a result felt as if everything was being held in by a faulty lid. Ron was surprisingly calm and collected as he leant against the stone walls lining the edges and looked down at the water. Hermione turned toward him and watched as he fidgeted and tugged on the ridiculous gold chain that Lavender had bought him for Christmas months ago. For the first time, she looked at it and wasn't able to conjure up any amusement.

"You're alright, Mione?" Hermione's gaze left his fingers and flicked up to his face. She watched as he turned to glance at her out of the corner of his eyes. Her and Ron's friendship following their conversation on her birthday had turned into something strong and reliable. She suspected that with all the unresolved feelings out of the way, their friendship had turned into what it was meant to be, and she found herself so glad for it as she watched him check every inch of her face looking for an answer to his question.

"I'm as expected, I suppose," she mumbled. She shifted on her feat at the uncomfortable amount of nervous energy filtering through her system and turned away from Ron. Almost immediately she spotted a head of messy black hair bobbing up and down through the thinning crowd. When he veered toward them, she could see that his chin was tilted so far down that it was nearly at his chest, but he somehow maintained his stiff and straight posture. She knew he must be embarrassed over his display of emotion during Dumbledore's funeral, so she decided right then and there that she wouldn't coddle him. Fussing tended to tip off his temper unless it was done at the hands of Molly Weasley.

When Harry finally made it to them, he went to stand a couple feet away from Ron at the stone wall. Hermione automatically stepped into place between them and glanced between the two anxiously.

"You reckon Hogwarts will be open next year?" Ron asked casually after a few moments. Hermione paled at both the question and his apparent lack of feeling in regards to the subject.

"You don't think it'll close?" She whispered in horror.

"Doesn't matter," Harry broke in. Hermione's head whipped around to stare at him in shock.

"What!" She shrieked. Harry turned to look at her then, and Hermione darted her eyes across his face, trying desperately to suppress her worries over his red rimmed eyes and grim expression.

"School is kind of the last thing on my mind at the moment, Hermione," he spat at her. She physically took a step back at his tone only to collide with Ron's side.

Ron reached out and placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, and said tiredly, "Oi, mate. She's just surprised, that's all. Don't have to yell."

Harry sighed then and his cheeks turned the slightest bit pink at Ron berating him for his temper. "I know," he grumbled. "It's just… well…" He looked down at his shoes quickly before looking back up at them with a determined expression. "I'm not going back next year. No matter what."

Hermione paled and quickly took her place back evenly spaced between them. "Well then," she mumbled. She cleared her throat and said in a stronger voice, "Neither are we."

She looked over at Ron in preparation of convincing him with a look only to see that he was already nodding his agreement. She turned back to Harry with a pleased smile only to find him frowning heavily at the pair of them.

"I can't ask that of you. It's not going to be easy. I've got to start hunting for the other horcruxes," he argued.

Hermione simply shook her head and reached out to wrap both her arms rather loosely (by her bone-crushing standards) around his waist. "When are you going to learn, Harry Potter? We're in this _together_."

Ron stood up to his full height and stepped forward to pull the both of them into his arms. "Yeah, mate. Can't get rid of us that easy."

Hermione laughed from her place sandwiched between the two of them when Harry grumbled some utter nonsense under his breath. They pulled away a couple seconds later, and Hermione watched with a small smile as Harry rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly.

"You can't bring Fred and Lavender," he finally added.

Hermione's smile dropped into a frown, and she responded sadly, "I've prepared myself for that." Ron once again nodded his agreement.

"I broke up with Ginny," Harry added with a frown.

Ron muttered a curse under his breath and both Harry and Hermione turned towards him. "_Great_. She's going to be a right nightmare all summer then! Thanks a lot, Harry!"

All three of them broke into a bout of rather delirious laughter, and Hermione relished in it. She was sure this moment was one the three of them were going to hold onto in the months to come.

* * *

Fred was in a rather morose mood following the funeral, and he didn't even bother hiding it. He'd sat and held Hermione's small hand for the entirety of the ceremony and was still shaking out his numb fingers from her tight grip. He was with Lee, George, and Angelina outside and thinking anxiously over how Hermione had given him a too brief platitude and dragged Ron off in the direction of the Hogwarts gates. Minutes later a furious Ginny had stormed past them into the castle, and boy wonder had stopped to asked them where Ron and Hermione had gotten off to. He'd pointed without a word and watched through narrowed eyes as Harry disappeared into the crowd of people. That had been almost twenty minutes ago, and Fred had yet to take his eyes off the place he knew the three would have to walk through to return to the castle.

"You alright there, Fred?" Lee's voice cut through Fred's intense focus, and he gave him a very fleeting glance before turning back to where he was previously looking.

"Those three are planning something," he said seriously.

"We knew this was going to happen," George responded almost immediately.

"So many secrets," Fred mumbled after a few moments of silence.

Fred forced himself to look away to stop the churning in his stomach. Angelina gave him a small smile, and Fred made a valiant effort to return it. He leaned forward and finally voiced the anxieties he's been feeling since he'd seen Hermione comforting a distraught Harry in the hospital wing.

"It scares me how much she would be willing to do for Harry," he whispered. He glanced around them surreptitiously before continuing, "How much she'd be willing to do for _the Order_." Angelina and Lee had both been inducted along with them when they'd finally officially joined in January. "I have a sick feeling that Dumbledore has given Harry his own mission, and they're going to disappear right out from under us. Hermione's always taken care of Harry _and _Ron. If I'm not there, who's going to take care of _her_?"

George shook his head at him and lightly admonished, "Give Ron a little more credit, Freddie. They'll take care of each other."

Fred frowned and the sick feeling grew.

"And if it makes you feel better…" George added when an ill look crossed his brother's face, "We can always have a little talk with ickle Ronnikins."

Fred stood up straighter and nodded, "Let's do that." He turned back to continue his focused study of the end of the bridge. "Harry too," he added as an afterthought.

"Oh, of course," George responded with a snort.

Fred suddenly started running in the direction of the bridge when a familiar head of bushy hair emerged standing in between the other two members of their trio. He didn't even stop running until he was right in front of her, and as a result nearly bowled her right over.

She startled and placed a hand over her chest before shrieking, "Fred! Be careful!"

"I need to talk to you before I go back, Hermione," he said seriously and gave both his brother and Harry a brief nod of acknowledgement.

Ron and Harry both gave him amused looks before disappearing into the castle. Hermione stepped up to him and leaned forward to rest the back of her hand against his forehead.

"Are you alright, Fred? You're awfully pale," she declared with a studious tilt of her head. Fred smiled down at her rather pitifully, and she frowned slightly. He looked over his shoulder at his friends and brother who were all clearly watching them and pulled her back in the direction she'd been with Ron and Harry.

"I just would like to speak with you before you head back. Is that a crime?"

She squeezed his hand and responded with just a hint of annoyance in her voice. "Of course not. That's not what I was saying." She looked up at him under her eyelashes and the corners of her lips tilted downward, "It's not like I was planning on letting you leave without saying goodbye anyway."

He stopped when he deemed that they were an appropriate distance from the milling about people and reached down for her waist to lift her up on the stone wall in front of him so that he could easily look her in the eyes.

She shrieked and looked behind her for a brief moment before attempting to hop down, but Fred stopped her movements by placing both hands palm down on both sides of her, effectively boxing her in.

"Do you trust me?" He asked quietly. He leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck softly. Before he could pull away, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kept him trapped there.

"Of course, but I hardly think this is necessary to prove that," she hissed. Fred pulled away so that their noses were just a few inches apart.

"It's not a ploy to test you, Hermione," he whispered. "I just need to look you in the eyes when I say this." His eyes darted across her face, and he watched with what probably seemed like eerie fascination as a pleased blush bloomed across her cheeks and nose.

"Say what?"

He studied her for a few more moments in silence before looking into her warm brown eyes again and saying earnestly and simply, "I love you, Hermione."

Her eyes widened and the blush spread. He didn't know what he was expecting as a response, but it certainly wasn't what she said next. "Oh _no_," she moaned. "I wanted to say it first!"

A bout of surprised laughter bubbled up in his throat, and he grinned at her in a way that he hadn't been able to manage over the past week. "Seriously?" He asked incredulously. "Was there some competition that I didn't know about in regards to who said it first?"

She rolled her eyes and tightened her arms around him until he was close enough for her to just tilt her head slightly and kiss him. She kissed him three times before she loosened her grip again and gave him a smile that was downright mischievous. "Everything's a competition, Weasley."

He grinned cheekily and leaned forward to rub his nose against hers affectionately much like a love-sick puppy. "Is that so, Granger?"

She tsked lightly and shook her head at him. "Of course!"

His smile was just a little loopy, he was sure, when he closed his hands in on her hips and pulled her just a little closer to step between her legs. "I love you," he whispered directly into her ear. Now that he'd said it once, he wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to _stop _saying it.

His smile turned into a smirk when he felt her shiver under his hands.

A second later, she pulled back with a fresh blush coating her cheeks. "I love you," she responded shyly before digging her teeth into her bottom lip. "Have for a while, I suspect. Pretty sure you potioned me."

He gasped indignantly, but the whole effect was ruined when his face returned to that loopy smile.

They leaned toward each other at the same time, and Fred suspected that the fact that Hermione was placed precariously on a wall hundreds of feet above the ground left her mind when she pulled him closer to her and leaned just slightly backward. As much as he wanted to snog her silly right there on the bridge, he was all too aware of the people still surrounding them as well as the small chance he got so carried away that they both went tumbling right off the edge.

He pulled back from her bruising kiss with a small _definitely _manly whimper and said regretfully, "Later, I promise."

Hermione glanced around and leaned back toward him rather than away, and he suspected she was realizing the same things as him.

"I came here to have a serious talk with you, witch, and you've completely thrown me off coarse with your femenine wiles!"

She rolled her body into him discreetly, and whispered in his ear, "I didn't hear you complaining."

Fred groaned and dropped his forehead to her shoulder as he realized she had brought forward the pressing issue of how exactly he was supposed to sneak a growing erection past a crowd of people when they finally did part ways. "You're _devious, _Granger."

He took a few deep breaths and forced himself to think up the image of Severus Snape in tighty whities as Hermione laughed outright.

He pulled back eventually and gave her one last chaste kiss on the lips. He stepped away from her reluctantly and reached his hands down to right the black fabric of her skirt until it sat at the audience appropriate place at the top of her knees.

"Wicked I tell you," he mumbled.

She simply smiled softly at him and let her hands fall to rest on the corners of the stones besides both her knees. His heart warmed when he realized that he'd at least succeeded in easing her anxieties over the height she was sitting at.

"So…" she said eventually as she tucked her free curls behind her ears. "... a serious talk?"

"Yes." He hesitated for just a moment before running a hand down the side of his face. He was reluctant to ruin the good mood that had taken root between them after the morose one he'd been feeling up until now, but he was afraid it was necessary. He sighed and looked back up at her now nervous expression. "I need to know your timeline for your parents."

He reassured himself that the conversation was a necessary evil when Hermione paled and seemed to sink into her own bones.

"I'm sorry," he whispered automatically. "But I promised I'd be there. I need to know when you're going to need me."

She nodded and straightened her spine. "Of course, Fred. Can you make yourself available on the twelfth of July?"

Her voice was too clinical for his comfort, so he just nodded as a response and leaned forward. "And will you go to the Burrow afterward?"

He tucked his hands in his pockets and clenched them tightly to keep himself from asking her to move in with him and George. George had told him the day before that she was more than welcome, but then Bill had cut in and asked quietly if he was sure it wasn't too soon. He wasn't usually one to listen to the doubts of others, but for some reason, he felt almost sure that Bill knew what he was talking about when it comes to witches.

"_She's just now of age, Fred. Maybe wait until she's graduated?" _

Fred had resisted the urge to tell Bill he was pretty sure Hermione wouldn't be going back to school. He wasn't sure how he knew this, but he just _did_.

"Fred… about that…" He snapped out of his thoughts and focused his attention on Hermione again. She was biting her lower lip anxiously and staring into his eyes like she could find the answer there to the question she hadn't even asked yet.

"Yes, dearest?" He probed in good humor.

"I was wondering if I could spend a couple weeks with you? Just before I go back to the Burrow for the wedding," she suggested before quickly pulling her lip back between her teeth. He grinned when she started to ramble, "I'm just not so sure I'll be in the mood for all the fuss that will be happening there, and I haven't told Ron and Harry my plan. I just don't want to have to explain why I'm upset, or why I'm there early… And… well… I just want to spend time with you. I'll attempt to help out with cooking, and I _know _I can clean. Actually it might be best if you don't let me cook anything seeing as how I can burn pasta… I was also thinking I could help out with the shop? Maybe I can help you with production or man the register? Although, I'm sure you already have someone to do that. Verity works the register, doesn't she? Oh drat, well, I can _definitely _help you in the back, and I can _definitely _clean. Maybe, I could-"

"Hermione," Fred interrupted.

His grin grew when she let out a sigh like she was relieved that he'd finally stopped her, but when she noticed his amused expression, she gave him a glare that held absolutely no heat.

"You don't have to sell the idea to me. I'd wanted to ask you to stay, but I was worried you wouldn't be comfortable. Too soon or such," he explained. "Anyway… I didn't want to pressure you."

He took a step forward to catch her when she suddenly launched herself off the edge of the wall and into his arms. "Oh, thank Merlin! I was prepared to beg on my hands and knees," she rushed out.

Fred let one of his hands slip down til it rested right at the base of her spine and whispered, "Oh, I'll have you begging on your hands and knees in no time." She pushed away from him, and he languished at the feeling of her body sliding down his front until her feet were firmly planted on the ground again. He was biting back another manish whimper when she reached up and cuffed him on the back of his head.

"Maybe I _will _go to the Burrow!"

He dropped to his knees in front of her with his hands clasped together. "Oh, please don't! Then who will do our cooking and cleaning!"

"Fred!" She crossed her arms in front of her and jutted her hip out with a familiar air of righteous indignation. "I don't know why I put up with you." His jaw dropped before he schooled his expression into a rather pitiful pout. She rolled her eyes and grabbed his arms to pull him back to his feet.

"_Honestly!_" She exclaimed. "Now any and _all_ attempts at cooking and cleaning are off the table," she sniffed.

He bent his head down to kiss her forehead swiftly. "I wasn't expecting you to cook and clean, love," he whispered, suddenly serious. "I'm quite capable of doing it myself actually. Although, help in the shop would be lovely."

She leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his waist with a soft sigh. "It's settled then. The twelfth of July."

He pulled her just a little tighter to him. "The twelfth of July," he repeated.

* * *

Fred pushed his hair back in frustration and leaned further over the steaming pewter cauldron in front of him. The smells that invaded his senses left him dazedly clutching at the edge of his stool to stop himself from falling face first into the pearly sheened potion.

He could still remember the first time he'd smelled amortentia back in their fifth year. Snape had shoved his head forward in typical fashion, and before he knew it, his eyes had very nearly rolled back into his head at the pleasurable scents practically smacking him in the nose. The parchment smell in the library, a sweet flowery scent- like rosewater- and something summery and warm that he hadn't been able to properly name at the time. A few days later he'd lost a bet and been sent to the library in his friends stead to pick up a book on charms to help them with a prank, and instead he'd found a tiny little Gryffindor swot sleeping soundly against a huge open text. When he'd gone over to wake her up gently, both because it was awfully close to curfew and because him and George had been worrying about her sleeping habits of late, he'd caught the scent that had invaded his senses that day in Potions. It was her fresh strawberry scented shampoo. He still remembered how it had stopped him in his tracks, and he'd been frozen in complete shock for at least a minute. Now, he supposed, that was the exact moment he'd started paying a little closer attention to Hermione Granger.

He yanked himself away from his cauldron and consequently, almost fell right off his stool.

"Alright, Fred?" Lee's voice cut in from a table on the other side of the room where he was tinkering with what looked like some kind of Wizarding wireless system.

He swished his wand, taking the potion off the heat, and made his way over to where Lee was working. The shop had closed down a few hours ago, and now the three of them were sitting together in the back of the shop all working on different things. Fred was using the task of restocking different products to distract himself from everything that had been running through his mind lately, and George was similarly working on some Skiving Snackboxes.  
"I'm fine. What're you working on?"

Fred pulled up a stool and observed as Lee fiddled with some kind of transmitter, and gave him a look from out of the corner of his eye.

"I have an idea of a way we can help," he said cautiously. Fred could see George perk up from a few tables over before he too was putting a stasis charm on his cauldron and pulling a stool up to the table. Lee glanced between them and gingerly set the transmitter down on the workbench in front of him. All three of them had been rather restless the past few days following Dumbledore's funeral. Patience wasn't exactly a virtue that any of them possessed.

"I was thinking about how Death Eaters are probably going to take over the Ministry. I mean- they _already_ have their hands in the Ministry. It won't be long before they have _complete_ control and once that happens, all news sources will be catering to them. News will be unreliable, and we can't exactly send owls. So how are we going to get news out for people on _our _side? People that aren't interested in Death Eater propaganda and want real updates about You-Know-Who and the war effort?"

Lee picked the transmitter back up and waved it in the air between them with a pointed look. Fred and George turned to look at each other as slow smirks made their way onto their faces.

George leaned forward and said, "So you're saying-"

"That you're going to start an underground-"

"Totally illegal-"

"Radio program?"

Lee grinned at them and said smugly, "That's the idea."

The twins shared a look again before they both reached forward for a page of notes that Lee had laying about.

"Wicked!"

* * *

Hermione sat on the end of her bed and glanced around the room she'd lived in her whole life. She felt like she should _feel_ more. She'd spent so long preparing for today that she felt like she'd felt everything she was supposed to feel already and now it felt more like a simple box on a to-do list than the great emotional upheaval she'd anticipated. It was the seventh of July and almost a full week earlier than she'd told Fred. She hadn't planned for this, but every day spent trying to keep up with the facade that nothing was wrong just fed into her mounting fear and anxiety. She'd thought she'd want more time with them, but she was almost sure that the more time she spent with them the more it would hurt to leave.

She'd said her goodbyes in her own way that morning at the breakfast table, but her mum had laughed at her. Her father though… she thought maybe he'd understood.

"_Mum, Dad, you know I love you right?" Her voice had come out steady, but her chest felt tight. Like a baby niffler had settled there and was stealing her breath like galleons. _

_Her mum looked up before turning back to the book propped open in front of her. "Are you pregnant, Hermione?"  
Hermione would have laughed normally, but instead she thought about how low the chances were that they would remember she existed when (or if) she actually was pregnant, and the niffler in her chest matured. _

_She shook her head briefly and assured, "Definitely not." _

_Her eyes moved over to her father to find him looking at her with an odd expression on his face. She stared directly into his eyes as she spoke next. Fred had told her her father had suspicions something was coming. _

"_I just want you guys to know. I never meant to hurt you by leaving. I just..." She trailed off. She wanted to tell them that she was just trying to protect them, but then that could lead to questions so instead she forced herself to smile. Her father shook his head and reached for her hand across the table. He was looking at her with something that looked like understanding, and she committed herself to burning that look into her memory. _

"_We know, Hermione. We are _so _proud of you."_

_Her smile stuck, but her eyes still watered. Her mother's tinkling laughter pulled her attention away, and Hermione watched as she looked at her husband and daughter's joined hands and shook her head good-naturedly. _

"_You two are such softies," she laughed. _

_When both of them just stared at her imploringly, she reached over and squeezed their hands briefly. _

"_Of course we know that, Hermione. We love you too."_

_Her father didn't have to say anything. He just looked at her, and she knew he understood. _

They were downstairs having their evening tea now. She could just barely make out the sounds of tinkling china, pages turning, and her father's amused laughter over whatever he was reading. She'd always loved how her father reacted so animatedly to whatever he was reading.

Hermione stood abruptly with her beaded bag and her wand both clutched tightly in her hands and her trunk shrunk down in her pocket and stepped as quietly out of her room as she could manage. Her parents weren't selling the deed to their house, and she knew it was probably stupid and sentimental to keep her house when it could very well be pilphered by Death Eaters or just regular old muggles, but she held onto it out of hope that her parents would one day come back. _Childish_. She chided herself. _Childish and naive. _

She shook her head and tsked to herself before gently shutting her bedroom door and placing as many wards and muggle repelling charms on it as she could manage. She wanted her room to be untouched, and she couldn't even fathom having to remove everything from it so that she wouldn't have to alter her parents' memories further on why they have a very lived in room in their home when they've always been the only two occupants. Instead, she would just make sure her parents never stepped foot in it. With that done, she walked as quickly as she could without making noise and made her way down the stairs and through her house until she was standing behind her parents where they were seated on the sofa. They weren't speaking, both were preoccupied with their own reading, so she held out her wand and forced her hand not to waver.

"Obliviate," she whispered. She watched as both her parents seemed to sit up straighter and turn their attention away from their books.

She looked away from the green light on the end of her wand and watched through a haze as she faded from her family photographs before her very eyes. Once it was done, she tapped herself on the head and the familiar feeling of a disillusionment charm took over. She knew she shouldn't stick around because it would be best if even she didn't know where they would be specifically, but she couldn't help but watch. _Just for a moment._

Her mother turned towards her father and leaned toward him to rest her chin on his shoulder.

"I've been thinking…" She started.

She held her breath when her dad wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, "You're _always_ thinking, darling."

"I think we should move," she suggested.

Her dad sucked in a breath and looked down at the top of her head. Hermione could see an excited grin start to pull at the corner of his lips. "I think that's a great idea."

That was all she needed to hear, so she stepped backward slowly and avoided all the creaky floorboards to make her way toward the front door. She didn't look back as she made her way out the door and out of the house.

By the time she was to the small park and apparating to Diagon Alley it was nearly dark and the niffler on her chest was replaced by an equally crushing emptiness.

* * *

Fred was in the back balancing books when his brother's voice rang out from somewhere in the front.

"Fred!"

He sighed and slowly set his quill down. The shop had closed just a couple hours before and it was already dark in Diagon Alley. He had had a particularly trying day, and he was absolutely sure that someone or something was out to get him.

"Fred, come here!"

He sighed and slowly made his way out of the room and closer to the front where George was standing a small distance from their front door. He froze at the concerned expression on George's face and asked quietly, "Everything alright, Georgie?"

They hadn't shuttered the windows yet, and Fred followed his gaze out the one on the left to see a small form sitting just outside their shop on top of an old trunk. He'd recognize that curly hair anywhere.

He turned towards his brother and asked quietly as if she might hear him, "How long has she been there?"

George shrugged. "Don't know. I just came downstairs, and she was there," he explained. After a moment he added, "Weren't you going to go get her in a few days?"

"Yeah…" Fred muttered. "At the end of the week actually. Something must be wrong."

"Dinner's almost ready. Lee's over; I bet we could cheer her up."

Fred patted his brother briefly on the shoulder before taking down the wards on the door and stepping outside. He hopped over the two steps down to the alley and paused just outside the door to study her profile. She didn't appear to notice the bells on the door or him standing above her and that alone was concerning, Her face was void of any feeling, and he got this sick feeling in his stomach that he knew _exactly _why she was there.

He crept closer to her and slowly lowered himself so that he was sitting beside her on the trunk. The alley was completely empty, and he took a moment to look up and down the street as he tried to figure out the best way to figure out what was going on. He settled for exhaling a slow breath and reaching over to slowly cover her cold hand with his. It was curled so tightly around her wand that her knuckles were white so he pulled it closer to him and gently started massaging her fingers with his thumbs until her grip relaxed and her head dropped to his shoulder.

"Let's go inside. We shouldn't be out here right now. All sorts lurk about here at night," he mumbled.

Just then, as if to prove his point, a man that looked like he'd seen better days, _much _better days, almost fell out of an alley across the street and started stumbling in the direction of Knockturn Alley. Fred lifted their joined hands in his general direction and whispered dramatically, "Unless you'd rather go with him. Handsome bugger like that would definitely take care of you."

She snorted, and he wrapped an arm around her to pull her into his side. "Then who would take care of _you_, hmm?" She demanded before wrapping her own arms around him and burying her nose in his robes.

"You're right. I need you," he declared solemnly.

He stood abruptly and pulled her up with him, deciding that he would get answers from her later after she was settled and comfortable.

"Come, milady. George's cooking and Lee's company awaits."

He let go of her to reach for the handle of her trunk, but she reached out a hand and stopped his progress.

"Fred…"

Her voice made his name sound like a prayer, and he only had to take one look in her eyes to confirm his earlier theory about what was going on.

"I couldn't wait any longer. I don't think I would've been able to do it," she pleaded.

Fred straightened and carefully took her face between his hands. She was so pale, and she seemed so detached that he was sure an emotional breakdown was in short order. He was half relieved he hadn't been there to see it, and half angry that she hadn't sent for him. He swallowed all that down quickly.

"Hermione," he said strongly, "it's okay." He studied her for another moment before leaning forward and kissing her softly. It only lasted a few seconds, but he tried to tell her through the kiss all the things he couldn't say. He was here. He wasn't leaving. They would get through it together. He left his forehead pressed to hers and whispered, "We should get some food and a hot cup of tea in you. You're paler than a Malfoy, love."

She nodded distractedly, and he reached down for her trunk again to drag it up the couple of steps to the door. He glanced back down at her only to see she was still where he'd left her, staring down at his hand on the handle of her trunk. It was _that_ look. The same one she'd gotten with the flower and when he'd held his arms out for her in the Hospital Wing. His smile slipped, and he hastily pulled his wand from his holster to shrink the trunk and tuck it into the pocket of the robes.

Her eyes flew up to him as soon as his hand had left the trunk handle, and he watched as she shook herself and pasted a smile on her face just as she always did. He reached for her fingers and pulled her through to start putting up his regular security wards.

She was standing somewhere behind him when he asked vaguely, "Are you ever going to tell me?"

He listened to her suck in a breath and ask in a very unconvincingly innocent voice, "Tell you what?"

He finished the last locking charm and turned around to give her a small smile. "Where you go when you get that look in your eye."

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and he watched as she schooled her expression into one of mischief that made him extremely proud.

"Maybe one day," she sang. He took her hand again and started pulling her to the hidden entrance to their flat.

"Well, I suppose I can live with that."

* * *

Hermione was genuinely surprised by how much she enjoyed Lee's company. She supposed since she found so much entertainment from Fred and George, she really shouldn't have been that surprised.

"So, Granger…" Lee started. Hermione raised a single eyebrow and watched as the energetic man leaned forward in his seat across the table and gave her an accessing look.

"Lee…?" She trailed off in question, trying not to show how uncomfortable his sudden _extreme _attention was.

"I'm working on this project, and I need to pick your brain," he said finally.

Hermione listened with growing interest as he described his plans for an Order run radio program, and she nodded along thoughtfully.

"We just need to figure out how we could make sure the right sort were listening," Lee explained with a sigh.

Hermione pursed her lips and looked between all three of the pranksters sitting at the table. "You remember the map?" She asked after a few moments of looking into all of their expectant eyes.

Lee sat up and tilted his head to the side. "The Marauder's Map?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes. A map that was charmed to protect its contents from all the creators' enemies." She lifted her hand and shook her finger in the air, "Not completely foolproof, of course. Nothing really is."

Lee's eyes widened, "A password…"

"Exactly. You could charm whatever you're transmitting it from so that it could only be accessed with whatever password you chose. Complicated work…" Hermione pulled her lip between her teeth and shook her head, "Maybe, you shouldn't use the same password every broadcast. If you did, it would be too easy for it to get in the wrong hands." She looked back up at Lee and nodded, "Yeah, you should change your password every time. You could announce the new one at the end of every broadcast."

Lee opened his mouth to say something, but she wasn't paying attention and interrupted him, "The issue would be that if you missed one broadcast, you wouldn't be able to key into the next, so there has to be some kind of pattern that people on our side would understand. Something our people would have a chance of guessing." She shrugged. "Not perfect… but it should work." She leaned back in her chair and started picking at the wrapper on her butterbeer. "You know who you should talk to? Remus. It's my understanding he did a lot of the charmwork on the map."

She finally glanced up when the sound of chair legs scraping rang through the room and before she could do anything about it, Lee was throwing his body against the kitchen table and smacking a kiss directly on her lips. She threw her hands in the air immediately as she felt Lee's hands press her cheeks together. Her eyes were wide as he held her there for way too long to be considered appropriate by any means. Seconds passed before he finally got yanked away, and Hermione absently realized she'd pulled at least a foot away from the table and dropped her butterbeer.

Fred had his arms wrapped around a grinning Lee as he pulled so far away from the table that his back slammed into the wall. Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth and held back a hysterical bout of laughter as Lee continued to exclaim about her brilliance and Fred screeched at a rather undignified pitch, "Oi! Hands off _my_ witch!"

Normally Hermione would object to being anyone's possession, but she found she liked the idea of belonging to someone. Even if Fred's threats followed Lee as he made a break for the floo to the sound of George's encouragement.

Fred was still yelling at an empty fireplace when George clapped a hand on her shoulder with a huge smile and asked, "Another butterbeer then?"

* * *

**AN: Lots of Fred/Hermione interactions in this chapter! Lots of things are starting to happen in the next chapter! I'm sorry to anyone following my other stories. There are only five chapters left of this one, and I am trying to keep a one track mind. Hope you enjoyed the update! Hope everyone is doing well and thank you as always for the follows, favorites, and reviews! **


End file.
